Oratia Media marks 25 years with launch of Five Oceans imprint

 

Oratia Media is celebrating its 25^th birthday, having been founded on 31 August 2000 by Peter Dowling and Alessandra Zecchini in Oratia, West Auckland. 

 

Initially a publishing services business for clients in New Zealand, Japan and Europe, Oratia Media later broadened its scope, while Peter maintained a full-time role at Reed Publishing (NZ).

Alessandra Zecchini

Business included cooking classes, food writing and styling, managing charity Te Potiki National Trust, reporting and analysis for Moodie International, teaching, translation and contract publishing. 

Hard work over those early years laid the foundation for the company’s own publishing under the Oratia Books brand. Since 2008 it has published more than 220 own and commissioned books. 

Peter Dowling

‘Sincere thanks to our team and all the authors, illustrators, clients, photographers, editors, designers, distributors, printers, booksellers, librarians, teachers, students, reviewers and readers who have been with us on this journey,’ the founders said today. 

 

Oratia Books’ philosophy is to publish and keep in print new and classic works, marketing across New Zealand with active distribution and rights deal worldwide. 

The Treaty of Waitangi, Margaret Mahy Book of the Year 2025 

That international approach led in 2021 to the BOP Bologna Prize for Best Children’s Publisher in Oceania. A further accolade came this month with Ross Calman’s The Treaty of Waitangi named Margaret Mahy Book of the Year in the New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults. 

 

To mark its 25^th anniversary, Oratia Books is launching a new international imprint, Five Oceans. This new list will bring literary non-fiction and children’s books to Oceania from cultures whose works are under-represented in English, let alone in Polynesian languages. 

 

First comes The Ant Rebellion, a bestselling junior novel from Turkey, in October, then Finnish picture book Thank you, Forest in November. Books from India and Norway are next up in 2026. 

‘We look forward to extending Oratia’s activities to all five oceans of our planet,’ said Peter, who is developing the imprint with Rome-based Maria Leonardi, international rights manager.

 

‘With Five Oceans, we aim to bring outstanding writing and illustration into our languages, while encouraging cultural exchange to and from Aotearoa.’