Tusiata Avia

Tusiata Donna Avia is a poet, performer, and children’s book writer of Samoan descent, born and raised in Christchurch, New Zealand. Avia's first collection of poetry, Wild Dogs Under My Skirt (Victoria University Press, 2004), examines what it is to be a Samoan woman, painting a deeply personal view of Pacific Island life and its occasional collisions with New Zealand ways. In 2002, Avia adapted it as a spoken word piece at the Dunedin Fringe Festival and has continued to perform the solo show across the globe. In the 2020 Queen's Birthday Honours, Avia was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to poetry and the arts. In 2021, Avia's collection The Savage Coloniser Book (Victoria University Press, 2020) won the Peter and Mary Biggs Award for Poetry at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards.