New Zealand Writers

SALMOND, Anne

For many years she worked closely with noted elders of Te Whaanau-a-Apanui and Ngati Porou. Their collaboration led to three books.

SALMOND, Anne (1945 - ) is an historian, writer and Distinguished Professor of Maori Studies and Anthropology at the University of Auckland, where she is also Pro Vice-Chancellor (Equal Opportunity). For many years she worked closely with Eruera and Amiria Stirling, noted elders of Te Whaanau-a-Apanui and Ngati Porou. Their collaboration led to three books.

The first was Hui: A Study of Maori Ceremonial Gatherings, written in 1971-72 and awarded the Elsdon Best memorial gold medal for distinction in Maori ethnology in 1976. Then came the story of Mrs Stirling's life, Amiria, which won a Wattie Book of the Year Award in 1977. Finally, Eruera Stirling's Eruera: Teachings of a Maori Elder, won first prize in the Wattie Book of the Year Awards in 1981. Salmond's major work Two Worlds: First Meetings Between Maori and Europeans 1642-1772 was published in 1991. It won the National Book Award (Non-fiction) and the Ernest Scott Prize. Between Worlds: Early Exchanges Between Maori and Europeans 1773-1815 follows on from this work. "It was," Salmond says "a swashbuckling period of cross-cultural trial and error." Between Worlds was also the winner of the Ernest Scott Prize. Anne Salmond has achieved many distinctions during her academic career, including a Fulbright Scholarship, a New Zealand Federation of University Women's Scholarship, a Nuffield Commonwealth Travelling Scholarship and the seventh James Cook Fellowship. In 1988 she received the CBE for services to literature and the Maori people and in 1990 she was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand. In 1995 she was made a Dame Commander of the British Empire for services to New Zealand history. Salmond is the Chairwoman of the New Zealand Historic Places Trust Board.

(KC. Information from publisher.)

Updated Information

The Trial of the Cannibal Dog: Captain Cook in the South Seas (Allen Lane/Penguin Books, 2003) is a fresh and often startling account of Cook's three voyages around the Pacific. In this book, Salmond explores the impact of contact on both Polynesian and European cultures.

The Trial of the Cannibal Dog: Captain Cook in the South Seas won the History Category and the Montana Medal for Non Fiction at the Montana New Zealand Book Awards 2004.

In 2004 Anne Salmond received a $60,000 Prime Minister’s Awards for Literary Achievement for non-fiction.

Penguin Books republished Eruera: Teachings of a Maori Elder and Amiria: The Life Story of a Maori Woman in 2005.