A giant of New Zealand and world literature, Patricia Grace DCNZM, QSO has quietly but powerfully infused the literary world with novels, short stories and children’s books, all of which speak eloquently of the lives of Maori and Pakeha in Aotearoa New Zealand. Her first published work Waiariki (1975) was the first collection of short stories by a Māori woman writer. Since then she has gone on to garner awards and prizes for books including Potiki (1986), The Sky People (1994), Dogside Story (2001) and Tu (2004). In 2005 she won the Deutz Medal for Fiction or Poetry at the Montana New Zealand Book Awards. She has been lauded internationally as well as nationally, winning the German Lißeraturpreis, the Kiriyama Pacific Rim Fiction Book Prize and the Neustadt International Prize for Literature. Grace continues to be active in the literary community, presenting her work and visiting schools. She lives in Plimmerton on her ancestral land of Ngāti Toa, near her home marae at Hongoeka Bay from where we have prised her to celebrate a lifetime of outstanding achievement. In conversation with Geoff Walker.