Whiti Hereaka is a novelist and playwright of Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Te Arawa, Ngāti Whakaue, Tuhourangi, Ngāti Tumatawera, Tainui and Pākehā descent, based in Wellington. She teaches Creative Writing at Massey University and is currently working towards her PhD.

She is the author of four novels: The Graphologist’s Apprentice, Bugs, Legacy and Kurangaituku. Legacy won the New Zealand Children’s and Young Adult Book Award for YA fiction in 2019 and Kurangaituku was awarded the 2022 Jann Medlicott Acorn Award for fiction in the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards and was long listed for the Dublin Literary Award, 2023.

In 2024, Whiti was commissioned by the Humboldt Forum, Berlin, to contribute to their Objects Talk Back programme.

Her latest book, You Are Here, is a collaboration with artist Peata Larkin as part of the Kōrero series from MUP.