Aotearoa Storytellers: Anton Blank

Stories and traditions, voices and shared spaces

Anton Blank in conversation with Síle Joy Mannion

Read Anton’s story in English and te reo Māori included in Poto! Short! (MUP 2025)

 

Red skirt

On the train out of Zurich, Mario compliments my look, which includes a shiny red vinyl skirt. I hadn’t even thought about Christmas colours.

Are you non-binary now? Mario asks. He’s late, almost missed the train. No, I reply. I’m okay if you are, he continues, tell me your pronouns. He/him is fine, nothing has changed, I respond.

In Māori terms, Mario is my nephew, son of my first cousin Annemie. But he calls me his cousin, which levels the playing field. Mario’s always called his parents by their first names, Annemie and Marco.

Mario goads his parents sometimes. I’m turning gay, he says, I don’t understand women — and there have been many.

It’s not something I would choose for you, Annemie says calmly. But all your girlfriends have been lovely, so I am sure you would choose a nice boyfriend.

At Annemie’s for Christmas dinner, she is the Weihnacht angel in silver and violet. Her sister Pauli is there and so is Marco. There are pine cones and candles on the table. We toast one another, open gifts and reminisce about the family.

I came out to my parents in 1988. It’s not something I would choose for you, my father Pius said, but I know I can’t change it, and that’s that.

I have scattered some of Pius’s ashes under a tree at Lindenhof, a platz in the middle of Zurich. I visit Lindenhof often when I am in Switzerland so I can be with Pius under misty December skies.

 

Panekoti whero

I runga i te tereina e wehe ana i Zurich, ka whakamihia taku hanga e Mario, arā he panekoti tapeha whero e pīataata ana. Tē whakaarohia e ahau ngā tae o te Kirihimete.

Kua ira herekore koe ināianei? te pātai a Mario. Kua tōmuri a ia, kua tata mahue te tereina. Kārekau, taku whakahoki. Kai te pai ahau, mēnā kai te pērā hoki koe, tāna haere tonu, whākina mai ōhou tūkapi. Ka mātua i te a ia, kārekau he rerekētanga, taku whakahoki.

Ki tā te Māori titiro, ko Mario taku irāmutu, te tama a taku karangatahi, a Annemie. Hoi, ka karangahia ahau hai whanaunga, kia whakatairitehia te whakaaro. Mai anō tā Mario karanga i ōna mātua ki ō rāua ingoa tuatahi, Annemie me Marco.

I ētahi wā ka whakaongaongahia e Mario ōna mātua. E takatāpui haere ana ahau, ko tāna, tē mārama ki ahau te wahine — ka mutu, kua tini kē hoki ngā wāhine.

Ehara i te tūāhuatanga ka whiria e ahau mōhou, te whakahoki ngāwari atu a Annemie. Hoi, ko ō hoa wāhine katoa, kua ātaahua, nā reira, kāre e kore ka whiria e koe tētahi hoa tāne pai.

Ki tō Annemie mō te tina o te Kirihimete, ko a ia te anahera Weihnacht e hiriwa ana, e poroporo ana hoki. Kai reira tōna taina a Pauli, waihoki a Marco. He koeko paina, he kānara hoki kai te tēpu. Ka tōhi mātau ki a mātau anō, ka huakina ngā koha, ā, ka hoki nga mahara ki te whānau.

I puta ahau ki aku mātua i te tau 1988. Ehara i te tūāhuatanga ka whiria e ahau mōhou, te kī a taku pāpā, a Pius, me taku mōhio tē tarea te tīni, nā koia tēnā.

Kua ruiruia e ahau ētahi o ngā puehu o Pius ki raro i tētahi rākau i Lindenhof, he wāhi i te pito o Zurich. He rite tonu taku peka ki Lindenhof i ahau i Huiterangi, kia noho tahi ai ahau ki a Pius i raro i ngā rangi kōnehunehu o Tīhema.

Anton Blank (Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Kahungunu) is of Māori and Swiss heritage. He has an extensive history in social work, communications, Māori development, public health, literature, and fine arts. Anton has held senior roles in the government and not for profit sectors, including Communications Services Manager at the Ministry of Education and Executive Director of the Māori child advocacy organization Mana Ririki. Anton was the Principal Investigator of the 2016 report Unconscious bias and education – a comparative study of Māori and African American students. He is an international expert in unconscious bias and racism, and now works across justice, health, education, literature, and the arts, developing strategies to mitigate unconscious bias and its impact on Māori and other marginalized groups. Anton is the editor and founder of the Māori literary journal Ora Nui.

 

Síle Joy Mannion is a proud Irish woman and citizen of Aotearoa New Zealand. Published variously and widely, on this side of the world and the other, she writes and writes, poems and bits and pieces of small fictions, short stories and reviews. She writes in English, her first love, and flirts on occasion with Spanish, particularly in song, but she is faithful unto death to the Irish, as she says: ‘It is a part of me and as necessary as the rain.  If English is my tūrangawaewae then Irish is my sheltering Rangi-nui-e-tu-nei.’ Sile’s latest work can be found in Poto! Short! (MUP 2025).