Apirana Taylor
Born (1955-03-15) 15 March 1955
Wellington, New Zealand
OccupationPoet, novelist
NationalityTe Whānau-ā-Apanui, Ngāti Porou and Ngāti Ruanui
CitizenshipNew Zealand
Period1979–2004
RelativesRangimoana Taylor (brother), Riwia Brown (sister)

Apirana Taylor (born 15 March 1955) is a New Zealand poet, novelist, performer, story-teller, musician and painter.

Biography

Born in Wellington 15 March 1955, Apirana Taylor is of Pākehā and Māori descent with affiliations to Ngāti Porou, Te Whānau-ā-Apanui and Ngāti Ruanui.[1] He was a prominent member of the Māori theatre cooperative Te Ohu Whakaari alongside his brother Rangimoana Taylor and playwright sister Riwia Brown. Plays of Taylors that Te Ohu Whakaari presented included Kohanga about the kohanga reo movement of Māori language revival and Te Whānau a Tuanui Jones.[2][3] Kohanga was awarded 'best debut play' by the Dominion Post.[3]

Taylor has published three volumes of poetry – Eyes of the Ruru (1979), Soft Leaf Falls of the Moon (1997) and Te Ata Kura; the red-tipped dawn (2004); three short-story collections; a novel, He Tangi Aroha (1993); and two plays. He was a runner-up for the Pegasus Book Award in 1985, for He Rau Aroha: A Hundred Leaves of Love.[4]

Taylors play Whaea Kairau: Mother Hundred Eater (1995) first produced by Taki Rua is described as a 'seminal Maori theatre work'. The play is an epic story set in the late 1840s in New Zealand, the central character is a dispossessed Irish woman and family.[5]

Poetry by Taylor was included in UPU, a curation of Pacific Island writers’ work which was first presented at the Silo Theatre as part of the Auckland Arts Festival in March 2020.[6] UPU was remounted as part of the Kia Mau Festival in Wellington in June 2021.[7]

Works

  • 3 shades, poetry by Apirana Taylor, Lindsay Rabbitt, L.E. Scott; with an introduction by Alan Loney, Wellington: Voice Press, 1981
  • Ki te ao: new stories, Penguin Books, 1990
  • Te ata kura = The red tipped dawn, Canterbury University Press, 2004
  • A Canoe in Midstream, poetry, Canterbury University Press, 2009[3]
  • Five Strings, novel, Anahera Press, May 2017

Notes

  1. ↑ Anthology of New Zealand Poetry in English, Oxford University Press, 1997.
  2. ↑ "First Māori theatre companies, 1970–1990". Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand. Mark Derby and Briar Grace-Smith. 22 October 2014. Retrieved 8 January 2023.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  3. 1 2 3 "Taylor, Apirana". Read NZ. Retrieved 8 January 2023.
  4. ↑ Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2008
  5. ↑ "Play readings of Kohanga and Whaea Kairau". Auckland Live. Retrieved 8 January 2023.
  6. ↑ "UPU". Silo Theatre. March 2020. Archived from the original on 19 January 2021. Retrieved 7 June 2021.
  7. ↑ "UPU". Kai Mau Festival. June 2021. Archived from the original on 7 May 2021. Retrieved 7 June 2021.

References

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.