Mat Tait made history at the recent New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults with his bilingual tale about two Māori legends.
The Motueka author won the Margaret Mahy Book of the Year Award prize, for his book, Te Wehenga: The Separation of Ranginui and Papatūānuku.
It was the first dual language book, written in both te reo Māori and English to ever achieve the award.
Mat says he was completely “stunned” with the win because although he had mostly illustrated books, it was his first-time putting pen to paper.
“This is another reason why this book is quite big for me,” he says.
“People have told me they’ve really enjoyed it, and they’ve got a lot out of it… so I’m really honoured that it’s been acknowledged in this way.
“At the awards the judges had a korero [discussion] about what they thought, and they thought it was quite an innovative way to present the story and its approach to bilingualism.”
Mat says he became fascinated with the story of the separation of Ranginui and Papatūānuku when he was a young bookworm.
“I kind of have made attempts in the past to kind of retell it and when my publisher, Allen & Unwin, asked me what I wanted to do [for my next book], this was the first thing that sprang to mind, to retell this pukapuka [book] in hopefully a slightly new way,” he says.
“I knew that it had to be led by te reo Māori… but I didn’t want to do it in a way that made it look like it was subtitled, so I decided to do it bilingual but integrate the text into the artwork as much as possible.
“I’ve been with [Te Ataarangi Trust], which is a grassroots te reo revitalisation organisation for a long time, and so I think that had a lot to do with it, that I could produce a book that might be a useful resource for people.”
Mat says his award-winning book takes readers on a spiritual creation journey.
“This version of the story begins at the very beginning so with te orokohanga, or the beginning of everything, and begins with te kore which means the nothingness, and sort of follows the development of something from nothing leading to the appearance of Ranginui and Papatūānuku,” he says.
“Then it goes into their story and how if they come together and love and produce numerous children, who are trapped between their parents’ bodies, and many of them become dissatisfied with the state of affairs.
“Being unable to express themselves to find themselves, they suspect there could be a wider world that they could find, so they devise a way to separate their parents and they merge into Te Ao Mārama, or the world of light.”
Mat also received the Russell Clark Award for Illustration at the 2020 awards for illustrating, The Adventures of Tupaia, which was written by Courtney Sina Meredith.
