Nafanua Purcell Kersel

Nafanua Purcell Kersel is a Samoan New Zealand poet. Her debut poetry collection, Black Sugarcane, received the Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry at the 2026 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards.

Life and career Kersel was born in Samoa and moved to New Zealand as a four-year-old in the 1980s. She grew up in Wellington, New Zealand, where she began writing poetry as a teenager. She moved with her family to Hawke's Bay in the early 2000s, and she is based in Maraekakaho. She holds a Master of Arts degree from the International Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University of Wellington, completed in 2022. She has three children. She won the 2020 Hawke's Bay Poetry Slam,

In addition to her written poetry, Kersel is known for performance poetry, creative writing workshops and work with Pasifika communities.

In 2026, Black Sugarcane won the Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards, New Zealand's top award for poetry.

Selected works Black Sugarcane (Te Herenga Waka University Press, 2025)