Striding Both Worlds illuminates European influences in the fiction of Witi Ihimaera, Aotearoa New Zealand's foremost Maori writer, in order to question the common interpretation of Maori writing as displaying a distinctive Maori world-view and literary style. Far from being discrete endogenous units, all cultures and literatures arise out of constant interaction, engagement, and even friction. Thus, Maori culture since the 1970's has been shaped by a long history of interaction with colonial British, Pakeha, and other postcolonial and indigenous cultures. Maori sovereignty and renaissance move