This Compulsion In Us

by Tina Makereti

It's not beautiful, not at all, when it's there in front of you, but writing transforms. In her first book of nonfiction, prizewinning author Tina Makereti writes from inside her many intersecting lives as a wahine Maori – teacher, daughter, traveller, parent – and into a past that is as alive and changeful as the present moment. Makereti stands at the foot of her mounga and pays careful attention to tohu. With her tupuna at her elbow she casts around for home, meets taonga in museums, and writes her way towards her father. She walks through the darkness with others, in awe of Te Kore, Te Po and Te Ao Marama—a universe of potential being, dark and light. These are some of the kaupapa that underpin her work and her way of moving through the world, both enlivened and haunted by a compulsion to write. Included here are frank and moving essays about the wahine who have shown her many ways of being a Maori woman, the pain and dark humour of living with an alcoholic, a blue boob from breast cancer treatment, and the potential of art to return power to survivors of colonialism. What if we could transform the events that made us who we are? What if there were a way back to the beginning?

320 pages, Paperback

Published September 12, 2025

About the author

Where the Rēkohu Bone Sings is Tina Makereti’s first novel. Her short story collection, Once Upon a Time in Aotearoa (Huia Publishers 2010), won the Ngā Kupu Ora Māori Book Awards Fiction Prize 2011. In 2009 she was the recipient of the Royal Society of New Zealand Manhire Prize for Creative Science Writing (non-fiction), and in the same year received the Pikihuia Award for Best Short Story written in English. In October 2012, Makereti was Writer in Residence at the Weltkulturen Museum in Frankfurt, and in 2014 she is the Creative New Zealand Randell Cottage Writer in Residence. Makereti has a PhD Creative Writing from Victoria University, and teaches creative writing and English at Massey and Victoria Universities. She is of Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Te Ati Awa, Ngāti Maniapoto, Pākehā and, in all probability, Moriori descent. She now lives on the Kāpiti Coast with her partner, two daughters and unruly dog.

Reviews

[Lucy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Compulsively read, impulsively kept reading this long after bedtime. Really lovely prose - sharp and succinct and also careful. I particularly enjoyed the parts about writing, which is to be expected as a writer. Highly recommend.