Emma Hislop

Guest Fiction Writer takahē Issue 106, December 2022.

What was the inspiration for this story? What process did you go through to shape it into its finished form?

After my son was born, the hospital threw out his whenua, despite us filling in a form stating we wanted to keep it, and informing, and reminding our midwife. They needed the space in the refrigerator. I was very distressed by this.

In te reo, the word for placenta —whenua—is the same as for land. This is no coincidence.

Traditionally in Māori culture, the whenua of newborns is buried in a significant place, most often with ancestral connections. This practice reinforces the relationship between the child and the land of their birth. There is a belief that human beings were first made from earth, from the body of Papatūānuku, the earth mother.

I guess it was my way of working it out, of getting my anger out on the page. It got me thinking about institutionalised racism, and the ways in which Māori are so affected by it. How there’s often such a disconnect between Pākehā systems and Te Ao maori. I tried to imagine what might happen if the relationship between the baby and the land was severed, causing a disconnect, and how to write that as fiction.

What are you working on now?

I’ve just finished editing a collection of short fiction, out in March with Te Herenga Waka University Press.

And I’m writing a new thing that’s longer than a short story. I think it’s probably going to be a novel. I have no idea what I’m doing. I’m writing scenes, and hoping I can sort of join them together.

What are you reading at the moment? Or, what was the last book you read that you really loved? 

I’m currently staying up far too late at night reading Small Deaths, by Rijula Das. It’s incredible and she should be famous if she isn’t already.

If you could have dinner with one other writer, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you ask them? 

One writer is mean! I’m going to say Natasha Brown. I’d probably ask her annoying technical questions about her book Assembly, which I loved. She said in a Zoom event I went to that she wrote, rewrote and edited the one draft as she went. This seems to be what I do.

What advice would you give to someone starting out on the writing journey?

I never feel qualified to give advice! If pushed, I’d probably suggest reading a lot, if you can find time. Find some mates to share your work with. Just do your thing.