Let The Dead Speak: Kia Kōrero Te Hunga Mate. Writing about ancestors or other figures from our pasts necessitates a collision between history and imagination. How much dramatic license can the creator have – be they novelist, historian, poet, musician or filmmaker – in depicting events they weren’t present at, in imagining conversations they never heard, in evoking the thoughts and emotions of those they never met?

Esteemed historian Hirini Kaa (Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Kahungunu, Rongowhakaata) meets a dynamic range of creatives to discuss how they’ve navigated these very questions in their work: Whiti Hereaka (Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Te Arawa), winner of the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction for Kurangaituku; Tim Worrall (Ngāi Tūhoe), filmmaker and author of 2024’s Ka Whawhai Tonu – Struggle Without End, set during the New Zealand Wars; and singer, poet, musician and author Ariana Tikao (Kāi Tahu). Book here.