Makiuti Tongia

Makiuti Tongia (born 1953) is a Cook Islands poet, academic, diplomat, and public servant. He is the first Cook Islander published in the Cook Islands, and considered to be a trail-blazer in Cook Islands literature and a key figure in the creation of a Pacific literary tradition.^[1]

Tongia was born in Rarotonga^[1] and educated at Tereora College and the University of the South Pacific, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology, Pacific History and Creative Writing. He won a Fulbright scholarship and studied at Ohio State University and Western Kentucky University, graduating in 1985 with a Master of Arts in Ethnology and Living Museums.^[2]

He served as director of the Cook Islands National Museum, before moving to New Zealand and lecturing in Cook Islands studies at Victoria University of Wellington.^[3] After returning to the Cook Islands he served as President of the Cook Islands Democratic Party, and as Secretary of the Ministry of Culture.^[4] In 2009, he was appointed High Commissioner to New Zealand.^[5] In 2013 he was appointed as a member of the advisory board to the Seabed Minerals Authority.^[6]

Tongia began writing poetry at Tereora College, and continued his work at university, where he was published in Unispac.^[7] His work was subsequently published in the Mana section of Pacific Islands Monthly,^[7] and in the South Pacific Creative Arts Society's journal, Mana. In 1977 he published his first collection of poetry, Korero, the first work published by a Cook Islander in the Cook Islands.^[1]