Jacqueline Sturm

Who was Jacqueline Sturm?

Jacqueline Cecilia Sturm, also known as Jacqueline Baxter and Te Kare Papuni was a poet and writer of short stories. She was born in Opunake, Taranaki, New Zealand, and was the first Māori woman to complete an undergraduate university degree, at Victoria University College, followed by an MA in Philosophy. Her stories were published in several New Zealand literature collections and student magazines in the 1950s and early 1960s, but not again until 1983 when a woman's publishing collective printed her stories as 'The House of the Talking Cat'.

Sturm was also the first Maori woman writer to have her work published in the English language.

She received an honorary Doctor of Literature degree from Victoria University in May 2003 in 'recognition of her pioneering role'.

She married the New Zealand poet James K. Baxter in 1948. Long after his death she married Peter Alcock. She died in Wellington in December 2009.