Award-winning Māori writer Dr Tina Makereti is heading to France after being named the 2026 Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellow, giving her three months dedicated to writing in the Mediterranean town where one of Aotearoa’s most celebrated literary figures once worked.
Makereti, who affiliates to Te Ātiawa, Ngāti Tūwharetoa and Ngāti Rangatahi-Matakore, has established herself as an important voice in contemporary Aotearoa literature, with work exploring identity, whakapapa, history, belonging and the experiences of Māori.
The prestigious fellowship will allow her to spend three months in Menton, France, concentrating on her writing away from the competing demands of everyday life.
TIME AND SPACE TO WRITE
For writers, one of the most valuable resources can simply be uninterrupted time.
The Menton fellowship provides exactly that, creating an opportunity for Makereti to focus intensively on her creative work while living and writing in an environment with a longstanding connection to New Zealand literary history.
The residency continues a tradition linking Aotearoa writers with Menton and the legacy of Katherine Mansfield, who spent time in the southern French town during the later years of her life.
For Makereti, the fellowship represents both recognition of the body of work she has already produced and an investment in what comes next.
A DISTINCTLY MĀORI LITERARY VOICE
Makereti’s contribution to literature has helped bring Māori experiences, histories and perspectives into spaces where they have not always been adequately represented.
Her writing has traversed fiction and non-fiction while engaging with questions about whakapapa, colonisation, identity and the ways the past continues to shape contemporary Aotearoa.
That contribution forms part of a much wider flourishing of Māori literature, with Māori writers increasingly telling stories grounded in their own communities, histories and worldviews.
Those stories are not only important within Aotearoa.
International opportunities such as the Menton fellowship also help Māori and New Zealand literature reach audiences and literary communities around the world.
A PRESTIGIOUS LITERARY TRADITION
The Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellowship has long been regarded as one of New Zealand’s significant opportunities for established writers.
Its value extends beyond the location.
A residency gives a writer something increasingly difficult to find — sustained creative space to research, experiment, reflect and write.
Three months can provide the opportunity to substantially advance a manuscript, explore new ideas or take an existing project in a new direction.
For Aotearoa’s literary community, supporting writers in this way is also an investment in the stories that eventually return home.
MĀORI STORIES TRAVELLING THE WORLD
Makereti’s selection is another reminder of the growing visibility and influence of Māori writers internationally.
Literature provides a powerful way for audiences outside Aotearoa to encounter Māori history and contemporary life through Māori perspectives rather than having those experiences interpreted by others.
From whakapapa and whenua to identity, whānau and the continuing consequences of colonisation, Māori writers are carrying distinctly Aotearoa stories onto an increasingly international stage.
Makereti will now add another chapter to that journey from Menton.
For three months in France, the focus will be simple — time, space and the freedom to write. What emerges from that opportunity could eventually become another important contribution to the literature of Aotearoa.
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