Author's novel approach to keeping fans happy

Witi Ihimaera says he's happy to set the record straight. Photo / Brett Phibbs

Rewriting old favourites has cost Maori author Witi Ihimaera $673 in refunds to unhappy fans, but it's a cost he says he's clear about bearing.

Since 2002, the celebrated writer - Maoridom's first published novelist - has been reworking five of his early efforts.

Four have been published (Pounamu Pounamu, Tangi, Whanau and The Matriarch) with one more, The New Net Goes Fishing still to hit bookshelves.

Professor Ihimaera's stories have always dealt with Maori stories from an indigenous perspective, borrowing heavily from his own family's experiences, and told against a background of social history.

However, he believes these books - published between 1972 and 1986 - failed to reflect the changing politics, including Treaty and tino rangatiratanga or sovereignty issues, of the period.

"Those books did not have that kind of explicit politics within them, so over all these years since I have really grieved."

Some of his characters who were based on whanau members were also not treated with the "respect they deserved" because their stories lacked that political strand, he said.

Te Whanau Akai, his East Coast tribe's Waitangi Tribunal claim in 2002 provided the impetus to undertake the revisions, because it forced him to relook at the full extent of his own iwi's history of land loss.

At the beginning of the process he guaranteed if people didn't like what they read they could get their money back. It's an offer which has been taken up by a few readers, with the figure at $673 at present.

Professor Ihimaera's first book, which has been reprinted nearly every year since 1972, had caused the most angst.

"Pounamu Pounamu is inflected, some might say infected by my political messages as well as the aesthetic messages.

"Some people have been very cross about that and I've had to pay them back. They've sent me angry letters and said 'Why can't you leave these things alone?' But I couldn't."

He stands by the newer editions.

"We have a saying in Maoridom, you have to put your ancestors before you. My implicit contract was with them - I'm really glad I set the record straight in 2009.

"I've always wanted to make sure New Zealanders see the whole picture and if anything that's been driving me to do the rewriting. I'm really proud of those first books of mine but they are a reflection of their times."