She began to make efforts to learn as an adult, but found it difficult. Grace has said that as a child she did not learn to speak Māori, because it was only spoken at formal events such as tangi (traditional Māori funeral ceremonies). She attended St Anne's School in Wellington, where she later described experiencing racism: 'I found that being different meant that I could be blamed – for a toy gun being stolen, for writing being chalked on a garage wall, for neighbourhood children swearing, for a grassy hillside being set alight'. In 1944, when she was seven, her father enlisted in the Māori Battalion to fight in the Second World War. She grew up in the suburb of Melrose, where her father had built the family home, and also spent time with her father's family at Hongoeka, on their ancestral land.

On her father's side she is descended from politician Wi Parata. Her father was Māori and her mother was European and Irish Catholic. She was born on 17 August 1937 in Wellington, New Zealand. Grace is of Ngāti Toa, Ngāti Raukawa and Te Āti Awa descent.

She was appointed a Distinguished Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit (DCNZM) in 2007, for services to literature. Her books have twice won the top award for fiction at the New Zealand Book Awards.

Grace is a pioneering and influential figure in New Zealand literature, and over her career has won a number of awards, including the Kiriyama Prize, the Neustadt International Prize for Literature, two honorary doctorates of literature, a Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement, and an Icon Award from the Arts Foundation of New Zealand for extraordinary lifetime achievement. She has also written a number of children's books, seeking to write books in which Māori children can see their own lives. Her most well-known novel, Potiki (1986) features a Māori community opposing the private development of their ancestral land. Her works explore Māori life and culture, including the impact of Pākehā (New Zealand European) and other cultures on Māori, with use of the Māori language throughout. Since becoming a full-time writer in the 1980s, Grace has written seven novels, seven short-story collections, a non-fiction biography and an autobiography. Her first novel, Mutuwhenua: The Moon Sleeps, followed in 1978. Her early short stories were published in magazines, leading to her becoming the first female Māori writer to publish a collection of short stories, Waiariki, in 1975. She began writing as a young adult, while working as a teacher. Patricia Frances Grace DCNZM QSO ( née Gunson born 17 August 1937) is a New Zealand Māori writer of novels, short stories, and children's books.

Potiki by patricia grace