Winning book set during Dawn Raids
Southland author Pauline Smith says it hasn’t quite sunk in that she’s just won a major book award.
Pauline (Vaeluaga) Smith won the best first book category in the New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults.
She penned My New Zealand Story: Dawn Raid, which is set in the time of the controversial raids on alleged Pacific Island overstayers that began in 1974.
The judges felt the book was ‘‘hugely relevant in today’s geopolitical climate with its debates about immigration’’.
‘‘I don’t think it’s quite sunk in yet. There I was sitting shoulder to shoulder to shoulder with authors I looked up to. I felt as if I’d been invited to the main table and wondered how I’d got there.’’
It was important that young people knew about this era, she said.
‘‘My students didn’t know about this era, and it was such an important part of New Zealand.’’
Smith’s book is the 28th in Scholastic New Zealand’s ‘‘My New Zealand Story’’ series that tell of significant events in New Zealand’s history as seen through the eyes of fictitious child diarists.
In this case the character Sofia navigates life in the 1970s. The book explores her growing political identity and activism in her Pacific Island community.
In their citation the judges said: ‘‘This is a great story, and hugely relevant in our current geopolitical climate, to help children understand
‘‘My students didn’t know about this era, and it was such an important part of New Zealand.’’ Author Pauline Smith has won an award for her book My New Zealand Story: Dawn Raid.
how political decisions around immigration that affect one group of people can have far reaching implications in society.’’
Resident in Riverton and born in Mataura, Smith’s family moved to Wellington and to Porirua East where she went to primary school in a strong Pasifika community during the 1970s.
The 54-year-old’s alter-ego Sofia ‘‘is the 13-year-old I wish I’d been,’’ she said.
‘‘I wasn’t aware of the dawn raids in childhood. Mum told me immigration had visited my dad in Invercargill to look at his papers, but I didn’t know that until after I’d written the book.’’
She is the Murihiku Ma¯ori and Pasifika Cultural Trust spokesperson, and the main organiser behind the annual Polyfest at Invercargill.
Also a lecturer in Pacific studies at the University of Otago Invercargill campus, the book idea came to her about four years ago when she started collecting stories about the dawn raids. She went to Auckland to visit Pasifika communities and interview members of 1970s activist group the Polynesian Panthers.
Smith received the honours and $2000 in prize money at an awards ceremony at Te Papa in Wellington on Wednesday night.
She was one of 33 finalists selected from 152 entries, and was still getting over the shock of winning, she said.