Witi Ihimaera

Witi Tame Ihimaera-Smiler
Witi Ihimaera in October 2012
Born	(1944-02-07) 7 February 1944 (age 73) near Gisborne, New Zealand
Occupation	Writer
Nationality	New Zealand
Ethnicity	Māori

Witi Tame Ihimaera-Smiler, CNZM, QSM (born 7 February 1944), generally known as Witi Ihimaera /ˈwɪti ɪhiˈmaɪrə/, is a New Zealand author. He was the first published Māori novelist.

Ihimaera was born near Gisborne, a town in the east of New Zealand's North Island and is of Māori descent (Te Aitanga-a-Mahaki) and Anglo-Saxon descent through his father, Tom. He attended Church College of New Zealand in Temple View, Hamilton, New Zealand.

He is commonly believed to have been the first Māori writer to publish both a novel and a book of short stories.

He began to work as a diplomat at the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1973, and served at various diplomatic posts in Canberra, New York City, and Washington, D.C. Ihimaera remained at the Ministry until 1989, although his time there was broken by several fellowships at the University of Otago in 1975 and Victoria University of Wellington in 1982 (where he graduated with a BA). In 1990, he took up a position at the University of Auckland, where he became Professor, and Distinguished Creative Fellow in Māori Literature. He retired from this position in 2010.