This Compulsion In Us
Book • 2025
Tina Makereti's This Compulsion in Us is a collection of essays that trace her personal and cultural journey through Māori and Pākehā worlds, examining whakapapa, loss, reconnection and the urge to write.
The book gathers work written over roughly fifteen years, interweaving memoir, cultural reflection and literary criticism.
Makereti reflects on family history, places such as Taranaki and Waikawa, and influential women who shaped her understanding of belonging.
The essays consider the limits of factual truth in creative nonfiction and the paradoxes of trying to write 'what is true' about identity.
Through lyrical prose and rigorous inquiry, the collection foregrounds both pain and the restorative possibilities of language and place.
The book gathers work written over roughly fifteen years, interweaving memoir, cultural reflection and literary criticism.
Makereti reflects on family history, places such as Taranaki and Waikawa, and influential women who shaped her understanding of belonging.
The essays consider the limits of factual truth in creative nonfiction and the paradoxes of trying to write 'what is true' about identity.
Through lyrical prose and rigorous inquiry, the collection foregrounds both pain and the restorative possibilities of language and place.
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Tina Makereti on identity, place and a compulsion to write
