Vaughan Rapatahana (Te Ātiawa) commutes between homes in Hong Kong,
Philippines, and Aotearoa New Zealand. He is widely published
across several genres in both his main languages, te reo Maori and
English, and his work has been translated into Bahasa Malaysia,
Italian, French, Mandarin, Romanian and Spanish. He earned a PhD
from the University of Auckland with a thesis about Colin Wilson
and writes extensively about Wilson. Rapatahana is a critic of the
agencies of English language proliferation and the consequent
decimation of indigenous tongues, inaugurating and co-editing
English language as Hydra and Why English? Confronting the Hydra
(Multilingual Matters, Bristol, UK, 2012 and 2016). He is also a
poet, with nine collections published in Hong Kong SAR; Macau;
Philippines; USA; England; France, India, Australia, and Aotearoa
New Zealand. Atonement (UST Press, Manila) was nominated for a
National Book Award in Philippines (2016); he won the inaugural
Proverse Poetry Prize the same year; and was included in Best New
Zealand Poems (2017). In July 2018, he participated in the
Hauterives Literary Festival in France. In September 2019, he
participated in the World Poetry Recital Night, in Kuala Lumpur.
Malaysia. In October 2019, he participated in the Poetry
International Festival at The Southbank Centre, London. He also
appeared at the Medellin Poetry Festival in Colombia during August
2021. Rapatahana is one of the few World authors who consistently
writes in and is published in te reo Maori (the Maori language). It
is his mission to continue to do so and to push for a far wider
recognition of the need to write and to be published in this
tongue.
Kiri Piahana-Wong is a poet, editor and the publisher at Anahera
Press. She is of Ngati Ranginui, Chinese and Pakeha ancestry. As a
poet, Kiri's writing has appeared in over forty journals and
anthologies, including Essential NZ Poems, Landfall, Tatai Whetū-
Seven Maori Women Poets in Translation, Ora Nui, Va- Stories by
Women of the Moana and more. She has one full-length collection,
Night Swimming (2013), and a second, Give Me An Ordinary Day, is
forthcoming. Kiri lives in Whanganui with her family.
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