Marama Salsano

Set in a future Aotearoa, Marama's novel contemplates the effects of environmental and cultural climate change on isolated Māori communities.

Commenced 2022

Marama Salsano (Ngāi Tūhoe, Te Aitanga-a-Māhaki, Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Wairere) is a māmā, writer, recovering English teacher, and ringatoi who is interested in the ways in which tīpuna kōrero is expressed through contemporary whakairo, kōwhaiwhai and tukutuku patterning. In 2010 Marama completed an MA in creative writing at the International Institute of Modern Letters and she also has degrees in accountancy, English, teaching, and tikanga Māori/Māori cultural studies. Her second Master's degree explored a Tūhoe re-visioning of English language literary texts, and her PhD continues with an iwi-specific focus. Marama's creative writing has been recognised in national fiction competitions and has been published in various anthologies and literary journals.

Marama writes: 'In my tribally specific research, I am interested in ancestral spaces in English language literature by Te Aitanga-a-Māhaki writers and creators. By ancestral spaces, I include spaces that we might typically associate with our tīpuna, such as our mountains and rivers and our pā, but I am also thinking about our bodies as ancestral spaces or sites of conflict or boundary markers as ancestral spaces. At the forefront of my writing is celebrating what happens when Indigenous peoples of Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa re-centre our narratives and ourselves on our islands.'