Draft:Phil Kawana
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Phillip 'Phil' Graham Kawana (born 1965) is a New Zealand poet and short story writer. His writing primarily depicts Māori characters and their struggles, and concerns ideas of race, social class, colonial legacies, identity and youth culture.[1]
Early Life
[edit]Kawana was born in 1965 in Hawera, Taranaki, New Zealand. He is of Māori, English and Scottish descent, and identifies with the Ngāruahine, Ngāti Ruanui and Ngāti Kahungunu iwis.[2] From a young age, Kawana was an avid reader and displayed an interesting in writing, having his first poetry published in a local newspaper at the age of eight.[3] This interest was partially inspired by New Zealand fiction writer Ronald Hugh Morrieson, who was a friend of Kawana's family.[4]
Career
[edit]Kawana did not begin his writing career until his late 20s, previously working a series of odd jobs.[5] He began by publishing his poetry and short fiction in a number of periodicals and anthologies including Sport 14 and Kapiti Poems 7with a some of his pieces being broadcast on radio.[6] These works began to attract critical attention, with his first breakthrough coming in 1995 at the inaugural Huia Short Story Awards, where he won the Te Kaunihera Māori Award for best short story in English by a previously published Māori writer. He won the same category in 1997. In the same year, he received a Creative New Zealand grant, an award given to artists and writers to allow them to focus on their work. In 1999, Kawana was appointed as as judge at the Huia Short Story Awards.[1]
In 1996, Kawana published his first short story collection Dead Jazz Guys which contains 14 short stories that depicted the experiences of young New Zealand Māori and explored themes of class, race and identity.[7] The collection explores urban Māori estrangement from their cultural identity after being separated from their land.[8] The collection was well received and received praise in The New Zealand Herald. Kawana published a second collection of short stories and poetry in 1999 titled Attack of the Skunk People. In 2005, Kawana published his first solo poetry collection The Devil in My Shoes. Similar to his earlier writings, the collection explored the experiences of contemporary Māori. For this collection, Kawana draws on his own life experiences of growing up in the Taranaki and experiences with the racial bigotry of Pakeha locals.[4]
Kawana has been active in the New Zealand literary world, with his fiction appearing on New Zealand national radio and at numerous literary festivals. His short fiction 'Redemption', from Dead Jazz Guys was adapted into a short film by screenwriter Timothy Balme and director Katie Wolfe.[9] The film debuted at the New Zealand International Film Festivalin September 2010 and was later shown at prestigious international film festivals including Sundance, Telluride, and the New York Film Festival, ultimately winning the Saint Tropez Antipodes Film Festival's award for Best Short Film.[1]Kawana's work has been published in multiple anthologies, including the prizewinning Whetu Moana: Contemporary Polynesian Poems in English (2003) and Mauri Ola: Contemporary Polynesian Poems in English (2010), both edited by Albert Wendt, Reina Whaitiri and Robert Sullivan.[2][10]
References
[edit]- ^ a b c "Kawana, Phil". ProQuest Biographies. 2020. Retrieved 22 September 2024.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ a b Sullivan, Robert; Whaitiri, Reina; Wendt, Albert (2010). Mauri Ola: Contemporary Polynesian Poems in English (1 ed.). Auckland: Auckland University Press. p. 86. ISBN 9781869404482.
- ^ Press Release: Auckland University (14 November 2005). "Phil Kawana Returns to His First Love – Poetry | Scoop News". www.scoop.co.nz. Retrieved 2024-09-23.
- ^ a b "Phil Kawana - Writer's Files • Read NZ Te Pou Muramura". www.read-nz.org. Retrieved 2024-09-23.
- ^ "Phillip Graham (Phil) Kawana". www.komako.org.nz. Retrieved 2024-09-23.
- ^ Huia short stories 1995. Wellington: Huia. 1995. ISBN 9780908975167.
- ^ Huia Short Stories. Wellington: Huia. 1997. ISBN 0908975643.
- ^ Moura-Koçoglu, Michaela (2011). "Narratives of (Un)Belonging: - Unmasking Cleavage, Cleaving to Identities". Cross / Cultures (141): 97–148 – via ProQuest.
- ^ "Redemption". New Zealand Film Commission. Retrieved 2024-09-23.
- ^ Sullivan, Robert; Wendt, Albert; Whaitiri, Reina (2013). Whetu Moana an Anthology of Polynesian Poetry. New York: Auckland University Press. ISBN 9781869405748.