Albert Wendt CNZM is of the āiga Sa-Maualaivao of Malie, āiga Sa-Su‘a of Lefaga, āiga Sa-Pātū of Vaiala and āiga Sa-Asi of Moata‘a, Sāmoa and Aotearoa. An esteemed poet, novelist, short-story writer, playwright and painter, he is also emeritus professor of English at the University of Auckland, specialising in New Zealand and Pacific literatures and creative writing. Wendt has been an influential figure in the developments that have shaped New Zealand and Pacific literature since the 1970s and was made Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2001 for his services to literature. Of his most recent books, The Adventures of Vela, a novel in verse published in 2009, won the Commonwealth Book Prize for the South East Asia and Pacific Region; and his co-edited collection Mauri Ola: Contemporary Polynesian Poems in English was shortlisted for the 2011 New Zealand Post Book Awards. A new collection of short stories, Ancestry, will be released in 2012.