New Zealand writer Witi Ihimaera was BOTD in 1944. Born in Gisborne, his family is of Scottish and Māori descent, affiliated to the Te Aitanga-a-Māhaki iwi. He decided to become a writer in his teens, setting out to redress the absence and misrepresentation of Māori people in literature. He studied at the University of Auckland and later at Victoria University of Wellington, working variously as a journalist and postman. He published his first short story in 1970, followed by the collection Pounamu Pounamu in 1972. His novels Tangi and Whanau followed in quick succession, making him the first published Māori novelist. In a decade-long hiatus from creative writing, he worked as a diplomat and edited an anthology of Māori writers. His 1986 novel The Matriarch explored the impact of European colonisation on Māori, and the Bulibasha: King of the Gypsies (filmed as The Patriarch in 2016). He is best known for his 1987 novella The Whale Rider, the story of a young Maori girl who becomes leader of her iwi. A 2002 film adaptation by Niki Caro became an international success, earning its young star Keisha Castle-Hughes an Oscar nomination. In 1996, Ihimaera came out as gay, stunning his readership with Nights in the Gardens of Spain, a semi-autobiographical novel about a married man who leaves his family to live openly as a gay man. A national bestseller, it was made into the film Kawa in 2010. His other work includes Dear Miss Mansfield, an opera libretto about Katherine Mansfield and the play Woman Far Walking. Ihimaera has two daughters from his marriage to Jane Cleghorn. He lives and works in New Zealand.