Robert Sullivan is a member of the Maori tribes Nga Puhi of Northland in New Zealand and Kai Tahu of the South Island. He is also of Galway Irish descent. He has received several national New Zealand book awards for his multi-genre work. Since 1990 he has written five books of poetry published by Auckland University Press (most recently Captain Cook in the Underworld, which is also a libretto for a composition by John Psathas, and Voice Carried My Family), a graphic novel illustrated by Chris Slane called Maui: legends of the outcast, and a children's book Weaving earth and sky: myths and legends of Aotearoa (Random House) - which won both Book of the Year and the Non-Fiction Category in the 2003 New Zealand Post Children's Book Awards. His first book, Jazz Waiata, won the PEN (NZ) Best First Book of Poetry award. He has most recently co-edited with Professors Albert Wendt and Reina Whaitiri an anthology of Polynesian poetry in English, Whetu Moana (AUP and University of Hawaii Press, 2003) which won the Montana NZ Book Award in the reference and anthology category. In 1998 he was the Literary Fellow at the University of Auckland, and in 2001 the Distinguished Visiting Writer at the University of Hawai'i.