Witi Ihimaera is going to George Washington University in Washington DC to take up a short-term residency in World Literature. The residency programme is offered annually to a distinguished international writer.

Fulbright New Zealand is funding Witi, who said he was ‘honoured to join the list of significant international writers who have undertaken the residency.’ He will lecture on New Zealand literature, participate in a reading with other New Zealand writers and also offer workshops to creative writing and film students on the experience of turning a novel into a film.

Witi is of course the author of The Whale Rider (among many other books) which, in case you’ve been living in a cave for the last two years, was made into quite a good film (check out the Reed Publishing bio for the full list of his writings). He’s been doing some interesting other bits and pieces too over the last few years – serving with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Canberra, New York and Washington; an opera, ‘Galileo’, for which he wrote a libretto, was premiered last summer in England, and this year, of course, he was honoured in the Queen's Birthday list as a Distinguished Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit.

Sir Witi has most recently been professor of English at the University of Auckland. We hope he comes back...