New team members add te Ao Māori and international perspectives to Oratia Books

Everyone at Oratia Books is pleased to welcome two outstanding new members to our multicultural team. 

Hirini Tane (Ngāti Kawa, Ngāti Rāhiri) joins on a part-time basis as Kaiārahi/Counsellor — to guide our work in Māori publishing, including te reo, tikanga and matauranga. 

 

Hirini’s whakapapa is to the marae of Oromahoe in the Bay of Islands where he grew up before attending the universities of Auckland and Otago.

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Hirini Tane

He holds a doctorate in Māori Studies from the University of Otago Te Whare Wānanga o Otākou, and has ongoing research interests in relationships of people, land and water.

 

Based in Ōtepoti/Dunedin, he is a principal of independent Māori research organisation Takarangi Research, and kaiwhakahaere/manager of the Māori Maps social enterprise. 

 

A fluent speaker of te reo Māori, Hirini will offer editorial support for our growing list of books in te reo and bilingual editions. 

 

Hirini and Oratia's publisher Peter Dowling have worked together for many years on the Māori Maps kaupapa, where Peter was kaihautū/executive director until recently.

 

Ella Fischer is building on her publishing career by taking the role of Assistant Editor on a freelance basis. Ella is assisting us with a range of editorial and marketing tasks. 

 

Originally from Tulln, Austria, Ella graduated with distinction in Comparative Literature from the University of Vienna before working in France and lecturing at Queen Mary University of London. 

 

Ella Fischer

In Aotearoa she has worked as a language teacher, writer and marketing/communications advisor, mostly in Auckland, and is currently the Publishing Partnerships Specialist at Auckland Council Libraries.

 

Ella is fluent in German and English, with intermediate proficiency in te reo Māori, French and Latin.

 

“He tino harikoa mātou ki te pōwhiri atu ki a Hirini rāua ko Ella i roto i te roopu Oratia,” said Peter Dowling. 

 

“Hirini’s guidance and knowledge will help ensure our books respect and properly represent Māori communities and develop new authors.” 

 

“Ella brings an impressive suite of communication and marketing skills to Oratia, along with great energy and international vision.”

 

Hirini and Ella are fulfilling Oratia duties around their other commitments and, like all our crew, working from home.

 

For further information, contact Peter Dowling, peter@oratia.co.nz 

Auckland: The Twentieth-Century Story out now

 Auckland: The Twentieth-Century Story

Paul Moon

A bold and original account of what grew Auckland to become our biggest city last century and how that reflects on all of Aotearoa

’Auckland is ambiguously a part of New Zealand yet apart from it — a relationship that has generated both vibrancy and, on occasion, tension.'

 

The relationship of New Zealand’s largest city to the rest of the country is just one of the tensions that Professor Paul Moon teases out in this bold new history of Auckland in the twentieth century. 

How different that relationship was in 1900, when Auckland was just one among equals across the four main centres. What followed over the next ten decades was a remarkable transformation — the result of dramatic changes in populations, cultures, beliefs, aspirations and senses of itself. 

 Auckland: The Twentieth-Century Story journeys through the mosaic of cultures and lifestyles, anxieties and hopes, disasters and triumphs, virtues and vices that led to this transformation. 

Rather than a formal history or chronicle of events and personalities, this is an impressionistic approach, highlighting events because of what they say about the people and time. 

Drawing on diaries, oral history, newspapers and other media, Moon illuminates themes including housing, the harbours, tangata whenua struggles, shopping culture, the immigrant experience and the pervading sense that Auckland sat at the edge of the world yet at its centre.

This crisply written, engaging history will give readers everywhere a sense of a city that has felt triumph and failure but continues to develop and look to the future. 

The Author

Paul Moon (ONZM) is a professor of history at the Auckland University of Technology and the author of more than 30 books of history and biography. He specialises in Māori history, the Treaty of Waitangi and early Crown rule in New Zealand. A fellow of the Royal Historical Society and the Royal Society of Arts, he is a frequent commentator on television and radio. Paul lives with his wife and children in Hobsonville, Auckland.

Publication Date: 5 April 2023 |  ISBN: 978-1-99-004235-5 |  RRP $45

Paperback, 240 x 160 mm portrait, 360 pages, b&w