A young whale searches for the whale rider's heir and a teenager takes an epic voyage to Antarctica with a fleet of waka hourua to claim his lost inheritance, in this breathtaking return to the world of global hit The Whale Rider, thirty years on.
A teenager takes an epic voyage to Antarctica with a fleet of traditional canoes to rescue the great whale and claim his lost inheritance…a return to the world and characters of the global bestseller The Whale Rider, thirty years on.
Sixteen-year-old Teva has never had contact with his father’s family. All he knows is that Raimana comes from Rurutu, a tiny island in French Polynesia. He met Teva’s mother while studying in France and decided not to return home. This created a rift with Teva’s grandfather, a chief and renowned traditional seafarer, which has never healed.
While Teva is kept in the dark about his Polynesian heritage, he is an outsider in France, too. With a curved back and a phobic terror of deep water, he stays in the shadows – until his acrobatic talents are discovered by circus master Jean-Luc. The teenager is cast as the star of the troupe’s forthcoming show, telling the daring exploits of a young prince of Hawaiki, legendary homeland of Polynesia.
All is not well with the royal tribe of Mysticeti. Lost in treacherous ice mazes surrounding Antarctica, the pod fears that their ancient leader has brought them there to die. Decades ago, in a similar dark, fey mood, he stranded them on a remote beach on the East Coast of New Zealand. Tehani, the lowliest rearguard of the whales, is given his first solo mission – but it’s impossible. He must navigate a way out of the ice and find a human, the Whale Rider’s heir: the only one who has any hope of convincing their chief to lead his pod back to the warm waters of Rurutu. But nobody knows who the Whale Rider’s heir is, let alone where this person can be found.
Many worlds meet in Witi Ihimaera’s larger-than-life novel, which takes readers across the South Pacific from French Polynesia to New Zealand and Antarctica, revisiting the characters of his global bestselling novel and film Whale Rider, thirty years on. Reality mingles with mythology and ancient tales reform in contemporary ways, the deeper Teva and Tehani are drawn into the realm of the god Tangaroa.
Witi Ihimaera Smiler is a prolific and accomplished New Zealand author whose body of work centring Māori culture and values has blazed a trail for Māori and indigenous writers around the world. He has published more than forty works for adults and children, including novels, memoir, non-fiction and short stories. Described by Metro magazine as ‘Part oracle, part memorialist,’ and ‘an inspired voice, weaving many stories together’, Ihimaera has also written for stage and screen – including libretti – edited books on the arts and culture and published a range of works for children.
His best-known novel is The Whale Rider, which was made into an internationally successful film in 2002. His novel Nights in the Gardens of Spain was made into the feature film Kawa, White Lies was based on his novella Medicine Woman and his novel Bulibasha, King of the Gypsies inspired the 2016 feature film Mahana.
His first book, Pounamu, Pounamu, has been continuously in print since its first publication in 1972. His works have received many awards over the years, including the Wattie Book of the Year and the Montana Book Award, and the Ockham Award for best non-fiction in 2016 for his first volume of memoir, Māori Boy. A second volume, Native Son, was published in 2019, the same year that Pūrākau, which he co-edited, was released: celebrating the work of other writers has also been an important part of Ihimaera’s focus. In 2020 he published his substantial nonfiction work, Navigating the Stars, and The Swimmer followed in 2026.
He has also had careers in diplomacy, teaching, theatre, opera, film and television.
He has received numerous awards for his contribution to literature. In 2004 he became a Distinguished Companion of the Order of New Zealand, and in 2009 he was awarded the inaugural Star of Oceania Award, University of Hawaii, a laureate award from the New Zealand Arts Foundation and the Toi Māori Tiketike Award. The Premio Ostana International Award was presented to him in Italy 2010. In 2017 France made him Chevalier de l'ordre des Arts et des Lettres and he received the New Zealand Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement in Fiction.
On receiving the supreme Māori arts award Te Tohutiketike a Te Waka Toi, Ihimaera said, ‘To be given Māoridom’s highest cultural award, well, it’s recognition of the iwi. Without them, I would have nothing to write about and there would be no Ihimaera. So this award is for all those ancestors who have made us all the people we are. It is also for the generations to come, to show them that even when you aren’t looking, destiny has a job for you to do.’
