Becky Manawatu (Ngāi Tahu, Ngāti Māmoe, Waitaha) is a West Coast author and journalist. She was born in Nelson and grew up in Waimangaroa. She spent some years living in Italy and Germany, where she started writing her first novel Auē, before returning to live in New Zealand. Becky studied creative writing at NMIT in Nelson and has worked as a reporter for one of the country's smallest daily newspapers, The News, in Westport, where she lives now with her family. Becky's short story 'Abalone' was long-listed for the 2018 Commonwealth Short Story Prize and she has had short stories and creative non-fiction anthologised and published online. Her debut novel, Auē, won Aotearoa’s leading fiction prizes and became one of the country’s all-time fiction bestsellers. Kataraina, the sequel, was published in 2023.