Regular price $40.00
It’s not beautiful, not at all, when it’s there in front of you, but writing transforms.
In her first book of nonfiction, prizewinning author Tina Makereti writes from inside her many intersecting lives as a wahine Māori – teacher, daughter, traveller, parent – and into a past that is as alive and changeful as the present moment.
Included here are frank and moving essays about the wāhine who have shown her many ways of being a Māori woman, the pain and dark humour of living with an alcoholic, a blue boob from breast cancer treatment, and the potential of art to return power to survivors of colonialism. What if we could transform the events that made us who we are? What if there were a way back to the beginning? By turns lyrical, personal and critical, This Compulsion In Us is many things all at once, and an unforgettable portrait of one of Aotearoa’s foremost storytellers.
Winner of the 2026 Ockham Award for General Nonfiction
Paperback, first published in 2025
