Musician Jen Cloher Embraces Māori Heritage

With haka chants and ancient proverbs, Australian musician Jen Cloher connected deeply with Māori culture for their new album, I Am the River, The River Is Me – another personal reckoning after understanding their gender identity, Andrew Stafford writes for The Guardian.

Cloher’s mother, celebrated Māori historian Dr Dorothy Urlich-Cloher, was a Ngāpuhi and Ngāti Kahu woman from Northland. In their youth, Cloher would go back and forth from Australia, oblivious to the Māori legends their mother often hosted upstairs, quietly enjoying a gin and tonic. “I didn’t know any of that at the time, because I was a self-obsessed teenager.”

Cloher is sitting at their mother’s desk. Over Zoom, they show me a patu – a Māori weapon passed down their family line – as well as bone carvings by their uncle, Stafford writes. At that desk, Cloher began writing “an intergenerational love letter” to their wāhine Māori line.

Original article by Andrew Stafford, The Guardian, March 2, 2023.


Tags: Dorothy Urlich-Cloher  Guardian (The)  Jen Cloher  

Amy Brown’s New Novel Inspired by Women and Art

Amy Brown’s New Novel Inspired by Women and Art

Like many writers before her, New Zealand-born Amy Brown takes inspiration from the Australian feminist icon Stella Maria Miles Franklin in her captivating debut novel My Brilliant Sister – but instead…