Kōrero: Cook Islanders

Born in Rarotonga, Alistair Te Ariki Campbell arrived in New Zealand in 1933. He and his brother William were sent to a Dunedin orphanage when their parents died. Alistair, who became a poet, novelist and playwright, recalls trying to rub off his dark skin in the bath: ‘To survive I felt that I had to make myself invisible.’ He is shown here as a young man.