Mākaro Press : Nielsen Book Publisher of the Year 2021
Our publisher, Paul Stewart: NZ Young Publisher of the Year 2020

An independent award-winning publisher in Aotearoa New Zealand founded in 2013. From April 2024 Mākaro Press is an imprint of Wellington publisher The Cuba Press.

Mākaro publisher Mary McCallum co-founded The Cuba Press in 2018 and the two publishing houses have been working out of the same offices in Wellington for six years, with Mary and publisher Paul Stewart working across both lists. In 2024, it made sense to formally bring them together to share staff and resources. 

Mākaro Press will continue to publish one work of New Zealand literary fiction a year. 

Kataraina by Becky Manawatu is to be published by Mākaro Press on 1 October 2024.
It is the sequel to award-winning Auē (2019), which won the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction, the MitoQ Best First Book Award for Fiction 2020 and the Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Crime Novel, and has been published in the US, the UK and Australia by Scribe. Auē has been translated into French (Au vent des isles), Bulgarian (Aviana), Turkish (New Human), Uruguayan Spanish (Forestera) and is being translated into Argentinian Spanish. The film/TV rights have been sold to Caravan Carpark Films. 

Read the story of how Mākaro Press came to publish Auē here. 

Empathy by Bryan Walpert is to be published by Mākaro Press in 2025. Bryan’s 2021 novel Entanglement was shortlisted for the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction 2022.

Victory Park by Rachel Kerr (2020) won the MitoQ Best First Book Award for Fiction 2021.
The Sound of Breaking Glass by Kirsten Warner (2018) won the MitoQ Best First Book Award for Fiction 2019.

For rights to Mākaro titles please contact High Spot Literary.
Our distributors are Bateman Books. 

Read the story of Mākaro Press: The rise and triumphant rise of Mākaro Press. 

Mākaro Press publishers Mary McCallum and
Paul Stewart, December 2023.