New Zealand literature

New Zealand literature is literature written in or by the people of New Zealand. It may deal with New Zealand themes or places, but some literature written by New Zealanders focusses on non-parochial themes and places. The concept of a "New Zealand literature" originated primarily in the 20th-century, inspired particularly by essays such as Bill Pearson's Fretful Sleepers — A Sketch of New Zealand Behaviour and its Implications for the Artist (1974). New Zealand literature is produced predominantly in the English language, and as such forms a sub-type of English literature.

The Māori were a pre-literate culture until contact with Europeans in the early 19th Century. Oratory and recitation of quasi historical / hagiographical ancestral blood lines has a special place in Māori culture; notions of 'literature' may fail to describe the Māori cultural forms of the oral tradition.

In the early nineteenth century Christian missionaries developed written forms of Polynesian languages to assist with their evangelical work. The oral tradition of story telling and folklore has survived and the early missionaries collected folk tales. In the pre-colonial period there was no written literature. After European contact and the introduction of literacy there were Māori language publications. No literary works in Māori have been translated and become widely read in the international commercial markets. The Māori language has survived to the present day and, although not widely spoken, it is used as medium of instruction in education in a small number of schools. As far as Māori literature can be said to exist, it is principally literature in English dealing with Māori themes, however it should be noted that some writers are including Maori in their predominantly English-language work, and this may lead to independent works in Maori, such as witnessed in works representing a revival of the suppressed Irish language in the 20th and 21st centuries.

New Zealand poetry, like all poetry, is influenced by time and place and has been through a number of changes. Poetry has been part of New Zealand culture since before European settlement in the form of Māori sung poems or waiata. The first colonial non-Maori poetry was also predominantly sung poetry. Initially colonial poetry had a preoccupation with British themes. New Zealand poetry developed a strong local voice from the 1950s, and has now become a "polyphony" of traditionally marginalised voices.

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