Te Ao Hou, a magazine for Māori readers produced by the Māori Affairs Department, was one of the earliest outlets for Māori fiction. Annual literary competitions encouraged budding writers to put pen to paper – including, in 1960, contest winner Peter Sharples, who as Pita Sharples went on to co-lead the Māori Party (Te Pāti Māori). In his report on the 1960 competition the magazine's editor, Bruce Mason, wrote, 'I expect – I say this in full confidence – that the next ten years will produce a Maori novelist of outstanding talent; already the ground is being prepared for him.' In 1972 the first book of Māori fiction was published – Witi Ihimaera's collection of short stories, Pounamu, pounamu. Ihimaera began writing fiction in earnest in 1969.
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Reference:
Te Ao Hou 34 (March 1961), p.26
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