Set in a near future where ecological devastation has made parts of the world almost uninhabitable, The Mires by Tina Makereti (Te Ātiawa, Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāti Rangatahi-Matakore, Pākehā) weaves “the damp and nebulous borders of [the] swamp” with the lives of her three female protagonists.

An unyielding swamp encroaches in Becky Manawatu’s (Ngāi Tahu) Kataraina, the much-anticipated follow-up to her Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction winning Auē. As described in The Spinoff, “Manawatu’s effortless figurative language is intertwined with the languages of science: lush ecology, resources and knowledge sits in the deep fabric of the environment.”

These two formidable wāhine Māori writers discuss their Ockham NZ Book Awards recognised novels and the call of the landscape with Emma Weihipeihana (Ngāti Tukorehe, Ngāti Porou).