Award welcomed despite controversy

Dominion Post

Witi Ihimaera has admitted to plagiarising some parts of his latest novel, The Trowenna Sea.

Dominion Post

AWARD-WINNER: Witi Ihimaera was one of five New Zealanders to receive an Arts Foundation laureate award.

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Author Witi Ihimaera has received a $50,000 national award just a week after admitting his latest novel contains plagiarism.

On Wednesday, he said he was pleased to receive the award despite the controversy about his novel threatening to overshadow it.

"Even though the current controversy is overpowering and is something that is an atmospheric around the award, the foundation award itself honours your exemplary work.

"I am really pleased the foundation has recognised that."

Ihimaera was one of five New Zealanders to receive an Arts Foundation laureate award on Tuesday night, along with musician and cartoonist Chris Knox, carver Lyonel Grant, musician Richard Nunns and photographer Anne Noble.

The award comes with a $50,000 grant that can be used for whatever purpose recipients choose.

Ihimaera apologised last week after Listener reviewer Jolisa Gracewood discovered he had plagiarised material in his novel The Trowenna Sea.

He said he was working with his publisher, Penguin New Zealand, on a new edition of The Trowenna Sea that will acknowledge all the book's sources and apologise for his "inadvertent copying".

Excerpts from multiple sources were used – often almost word for word – in The Trowenna Sea. They included Peter Godwin's Mukiwa: A White Boy in Africa, Sydney Wayne Jackman's Tasmania and Karen Sinclair's Prophetic Histories: The People of Maramatanga – one of the only sources on Hohepa Te Umuroa, the central figure in Ihimaera's novel.

He plans to use the laureate grant for research for future novels.

Stuart McCutcheon, vice-chancellor at the University of Auckland – where Ihimaera is an English professor – and Arts Faculty dean Jan Crosthwaite did not return calls on Tuesday.

University spokesman Bill Williams would not comment on the timing of the award, but in a statement said the university "has investigated this matter and is satisfied there was no deliberate wrongdoing".

Fellow laureate recipient Chris Knox, who had a stroke in June and can say only a few words, confirmed his recovery was going well. The Arts Foundation has awarded 49 laureateships, worth $2.1 million, since it was set up in 2000. Past winners include Oscar-winning costume designer Ngila Dickson, Wellington writer Lloyd Jones, concert pianist Michael Houstoun and poet Bill Manhire. – Fairfax

- © Fairfax NZ News

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