Nafanua Purcell Kersel

Nafanua Purcell Kersel
Born
Samoa
Alma materInternational Institute of Modern Letters (MA, 2022)
OccupationPoet
Children3
AwardsMary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry

Nafanua Purcell Kersel is a Samoan New Zealand poet. Her debut poetry collection, Black Sugarcane, received the Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry at the 2026 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards.

Life and career

Kersel was born in Samoa and moved to New Zealand as a four-year-old in the 1980s.[1] She grew up in Wellington, New Zealand, where she began writing poetry as a teenager.[2][3] She moved with her family to Hawke's Bay in the early 2000s, and as of 2026 she is based in Maraekakaho.[3][4] She holds a Master of Arts degree from the International Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University of Wellington, completed in 2022.[2][5] She has three children.[6]

Kersel's poetry has been published in journals and anthologies including Cordite Poetry Review, Landfall, the 2022 edition of Best New Zealand Poems, Turbine / Kapohau,[2] and Vā: Stories by Women of the Moana (2022).[6] She won the 2020 Hawke's Bay Poetry Slam,[3] and was the 2025 Emerging Pasfika Writer in Residence at Victoria University.[2][7][8]

In addition to her written poetry, Kersel is known for performance poetry, creative writing workshops and work with Pasifika communities.[2][7]

Black Sugarcane

Kersel's debut poetry collection, Black Sugarcane, was published in 2025, having received the Biggs Family Prize in Poetry as an unpublished manuscript in 2022.[2] Kersel has described the book as a collection of stories that inadvertently became poems.[4] Ruby Macomber, reviewing the collection for the Aotearoa New Zealand Review of Books, described Kersel as "capable of impressive worldbuilding and of careful, high-impact detail", and concluded that the collection contributes "to a growing, bold Pasifika poetry canon".[9]

In 2026, Black Sugarcane won the Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards, New Zealand's top award for poetry.[4] Judge Daren Kamali said that each of Kersel's poems "pulses with clarity, restraint, and quiet power, revealing the extraordinary within the ordinary".[10]

Selected works

References

  1. ↑ "Talanoa with poet Nafanua Purcell-Kersel". Radio New Zealand. 20 May 2026. Retrieved 20 May 2026.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Nafanua Purcell Kersel". Read NZ Te Pou Muramura. Retrieved 19 May 2026.
  3. 1 2 3 Riddell, Jack (4 March 2026). "Hawke's Bay poet Nafanua Purcell Kersel shortlisted for Ockham book awards prize". The Hawke's Bay Today. Retrieved 19 May 2026.
  4. 1 2 3 Riddell, Jack (14 May 2026). "'A dream come true': Hawke's Bay poet's debut wins Ockham award". The Hawke's Bay Today. Retrieved 19 May 2026.
  5. ↑ "What I'm Reading: Nafanua Purcell Kersel". The Post. 16 February 2025. Retrieved 19 May 2026.
  6. 1 2 Kersel, Nafanua Purcell (2022). "Protection Order". Ōrongohau | Best New Zealand Poems. Retrieved 19 May 2026.
  7. 1 2 "Emerging writer". The Post. 8 July 2025. p. 9. ProQuest 3227624155
  8. ↑ "Nafanua Purcell Kersel named as 2025 Emerging Pasifika Writer in Residence". Victoria University of Wellington. 7 July 2025. Retrieved 19 May 2026.
  9. ↑ Macomber, Ruby (16 April 2025). "Black Sugarcane by Nafanua Purcell Kersel". Aotearoa New Zealand Review of Books. Retrieved 19 May 2026.
  10. ↑ "Short story collection wins New Zealand's biggest book prize". Radio New Zealand. 13 May 2026. Retrieved 19 May 2026.
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