Mikaela Nyman writes fiction, non-fiction and poetry in English and Swedish. Born in the autonomous, demilitarised Åland Islands in Finland, she lived in Vanuatu and is a keen collaborator with Pacific Island writers. Mikaela’s climate fiction novel Sado (Te Herenga Waka University Press, 2020) was set in Vanuatu in the aftermath of Tropical Cyclone Pam. In Landfall Review, Zahid Gamieldien compared Sado to J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace, and concluded: “In many ways, it [Sado] is a subtler work of fiction that is kinder to its characters – and it ends up operating as an intricate love letter to Vanuatu.”

She holds a PhD in Creative Writing inter-disciplinary with Pacific Studies from the IIML at Te Herenga Waka University. In 2021, she co-edited the ground-breaking Sista, Stanap Strong! A Vanuatu Women’s Anthology (THWUP, 2021) with Rebecca Tobo Olul-Hossen. In her review, Selina Tusitala Marsh said: “I commend and congratulate the editors Mikaela Nyman, Rebecca Tobo Olul-Hossen and the regional editors mentioned in the introduction for their tenacity (through a category 5 cyclone and COVID-19) and their vision to bringing this book alive. Their role as editors, rather than as literary gatekeepers, are more akin to that of midwives, complete with long hours and no pay, who have helped bring new life and new stories into the light of publication. Sista Stanap Strong! is an anthology full of astute, emotional honest personal declarations and explorations of independence.”

In 2023, Mikaela was invited as an ally and supporter of Melanesian literature to facilitate creative writing workshops at the 7th Melanesian Arts & Culture Festival and the first Haus Storian literary festival in Port Vila, Vanuatu. Her long-standing collaboration with writers in Vanuatu to boost literature and literacy, locally and regionally, is ongoing.

Both of Mikaela’s poetry collections in Swedish have been nominated for the Nordic Council Literature Prize, in 2020 and 2024 respectively. Her second poetry collection To get out of a riptide, you must move sideways (Ellips, 2023) was awarded a major prize by the Swedish Literary Society in Finland (SLS) in 2024. Swedish reviewer Therese Eriksson wrote: “The landscape, plants and animals – a wonderful mix of Nordic and New Zealand – are not only Nyman’s tools for describing the violent changes our planet is facing, but equally her way of writing about people and relationships. Here Nyman’s poetry reminds of the American poet Elizabeth Bishop’s way of choosing the path via the non-human in her poems in order to write precisely about humanity.” (Svenska Dagbladet 11 July 2024). In 2022, Ellips published Mikaela’s literary essay and translation of some of Helen Heath’s poems from Are Friends Electric? in Swedish. She has written essays about several New Zealand and Pacific writers for Nordic literary journal Horisont and World Literature Today.

In 2021, she held the Massey University Visiting Artist Residency in Palmerston North. In 2024, Mikaela was the Robert Burns Fellow at Otago University and invited to deliver a creative response to Janet Frame at the Symposium for the Janet Frame Centenary. She lives in Taranaki and produces the Sugar Loafing Arts Cast, a community arts radio show and podcast that challenges the belief that the arts are exclusive.

In 2025 Mikaela published her first English language poetry collection The Anatomy of Sand (Te Herenga Waka University Press). She will also release Scotopia (Ōtākou Press and Hocken) which is a limited edition, hand-printed short sequence of poems from her Robert Burns Fellowship.

 

Links

Victoria University Press (now Te Herenga Waka University Press) author page 

Read NZ writer file

Regional News review of Anatomy of Sand (May, 2025)

University of Otago announces Mikaela as Robert Burns Fellow 2024 (Sept, 2023)

Project MUSE review by Margaret Jolly of Sista, Stanap Strong!: A Vanuatu Women’s Anthology (Vol 34 No 1, 2022)

NZ Herald article announcing Mikaela’s Massey University residency (March, 2021)

Kete Books review by Selina Tusitala Marsh of Sista, Stanap Strong! A Vanuatu Women’s Anthology (2021)

The Spinoff review by Rebecca Tobo Olul-Hossen of Sado (Sept, 2020)

Poetry Shelf essay by Paula Green discussing Sado and Mikaela’s choice to write about a place and culture other than hers (August, 2020)

Radio NZ review on Nine to Noon of Sado (April, 2020)

Landfall review by Zahid Gamieldien on Sado (July, 2020)