IT IS ESTIMATED that 70% of American schools use JOY COWLEY’s books for children, described as “learning through laughter”. More than 40 million copies of her picture book Mrs Wishy-Washy’s Farm have sold worldwide. Her many awards include Children’s Book of the Year, the Order of the British Empire, New Zealand Post Book Awards and the Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement in Fiction. She has published numerous non-educational picture books, chapter books for developing readers and seven adult novels as well as short-story collections and a memoir, Navigation, published in 2010.
CATHIE KOA DUNSFORD is the author of 25 books, including the popular Cowrie eco-novel series featuring Tangata Whenua (a Maori term for “people of the land”) and eco activists from the Pacific region. She has taught literature, creative writing and publishing at the University of Auckland since 1975 and is the recipient of two major literary grants from Creative New Zealand Arts Council and was International Woman of the Year in Publishing in 1997. She tours the world performing scenes from the books with traditional Maori waiata (song) and taonga puoro (musical instruments). Fellow author Witi Ihimaera will help launch her novel, Kaitiakitanga Pasifika, at the fair tomorrow.
Award-winning children’s author and illustrator DAVID ELLIOT has published six picture books, including the popular Sydney Penguin series and Pigtails the Pirate—winner of the 2003 New Zealand Post Children’s Picture Book Award. In 2009 he illustrated Te Word Witch by internationally acclaimed writer, Margaret Mahy; which went on to win the Honour Award in the 2010 New Zealand Post Picture Book category. In 2010, he and Margaret worked together again on
Cowley Ihimaera Horrocks Grace Elliot Jones Dunsford
More than 60 New Zealand authors are attending this year’s fair, Felicity Wood highlights the careers of a few names walking the Buchmesse’s halls
Graphic novelist, writer, illustrator and comic artist DYLAN HORROCKS is best known for the graphic novel Hicksville, a story that combines the history of comics with ideas around geographical and cultural colonisation in New Zealand. In 2002 Hicksville won Horrocks an Eisner Award (Talent Deserving of Wider Recognition). Horrocks has also written scripts for Batgirl (DC Comics) and Hunter: the Age of Magic (Vertigo).
One of WITI IHIMAERA’s best- loved books, Te Whale Rider, was released as a feature film in 2002 and went on to receive worldwide acclaim. He was the first Maori writer to publish both a book of short stories and a novel, and his books include Tangi, Pounamu Pounamu, Te Matriarch and the semi- autobiographical work Nights in the Gardens of Spain. He has won numerous awards, including the premier Maori arts award, Te Tohutiketike a Te Waka Toi in 2009, and the New Zealand equivalent of a knighthood in 2004.
Te Moon and Farmer McPhee, which won the New Zealand Post Children’s Book of the Year Award for 2011. Internationally, David has provided illustrations for Brian Jacques’ Redwall and Castaways series and also for US authors, T A Barron and Jeffrey Kluger. Elliot has just completed his latest picture book, Henry’s Map, which will be published in 2013.
PATRICIA GRACE is a major New Zealand novelist, short story writer and children’s writer—widely recognised as a key figure in
14 THE BOOKSELLER DAILY AT FRANKFURT | 12 OCTOBER 2012
contemporary world literature and in Maori fiction. Her first published work, Waiariki (1975), was the first ever collection of short stories by a Maori woman writer. Numerous books have followed including the highly praised Potiki (1986), which won the New Zealand Book Award for Fiction. In 2005 she received an Arts Foundation of New Zealand Icon Award, a Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement in 2006, and a Distinguished Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2007.
LLOYD JONES is best known for his Man Booker Prize shortlisted novel Mister Pip. Published in 2006 it went on to win the Best Book Award in South East Asia in the 2007 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and the Kiriyama Prize. Set in Bouganville during the civil war of the early 1990s, Mister Pip is narrated by 14-year-old Matilda, whose life is changed when a substitute teacher reads the class Dickens’ Great Expectations—a film adaptation, starring Hugh Laurie, is under production. In 2008, Jones’ contribution to New Zealand literature was recognised with a Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement in Fiction. He was also made an Arts Foundation New Zealand Laureate, which aims to celebrate talent nationally and internationally.