Te Kuia me te Pūngāwerewere/The Kuia and the Spider

Patricia Grace is one of New Zealand’s most prominent and celebrated Maori fiction authors and a figurehead of modern New Zealand literature. She garnered initial acclaim in the 1970s with her collection of short stories entitled Waiariki (1975) — the first published book by a Maori woman in New Zealand. She has published six novels and seven short story collections, as well as a number of books for children and a work of non-fiction. She won the New Zealand Book Award for Fiction for Potiki in 1987, and was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2001 with Dogside Story, which also won the 2001 Kiriyama Pacific Rim Fiction Prize. Her children’s story The Kuia and the Spider won the New Zealand Picture Book of the Year in 1982.

Robyn Kahukiwa (1938-20250, of Ngāti Porou, Te Aitanga-a-Hauiti, Ngāti Konohi, and Te Whānau-a-Ruataupare, was a highly regarded New Zealand contemporary artist and award-winning author and illustrator of children's books.

Born in Sydney, Australia, she trained as a commercial artist and came to New Zealand at the age of 19, where she came to be known for her work drawing on Māori symbolism and mythological figures as well as for her staunch support of Māori women's rights. She has written and illustrated 12 books of her own, and illustrated a number of stories for other New Zealand authors, most notably Patricia Grace.

In 2011 Kahukiwa was awarded Te Tohu Toi Kē a Te Waka Toi/Making a Difference Award for her contribution to Māori arts. In 2020, Robyn Kahukiwa received the Te Tohu Aroha mō Te Arikinui Dame Te Atairangikaahu Exemplary/Supreme Award at the Te Waka Toi Awards, in recognition of her life’s work.

She died in April 2025 at the age of 87, and her whānau posted the news with the words, "You leave your great legacy of Māori art, and the taonga of your stories and illustrations for us your whānau, your mokopuna, and future generations."