Contrary to other Māori writers of her generation such as Patricia Grace and Witi Ihimaera, her work has often been overlooked in New Zealand, possibly because she is no longer based there.
Her first feature-length film was an adaptation of Witi Ihimaera's book, Nights in the Gardens of Spain called Kawa
More TV docos followed, then in 1978, Against the Lights, a short drama based on a Witi Ihimaera tale.
Through the character of Anna, Voyage in the Dark presents the tension between wanting to be integrated into English society and simultaneously resisting it, a trait it shares with other works of modernist literature written by Anglophone authors such as the Maori writer Witi Ihimaera, whose characters express a desire to engage with and absorb the best of the colonial legacy, yet simultaneously seek to assert their own identity and to avoid becoming absorbed by the culture of the colonial power.
In 2004, his nephew Gary Christie Lewis married Lady Davina Windsor, becoming the first Māori to marry into the British Royal Family.
Well-known current or former members or affiliates of the tribe include Sir Āpirana Ngata,Herewaka Te-Rangi-Pai Potae, George Nepia, Quentin Bruce (Goldsmith) Koromete, Te Moana Nui a Kiwa Ngarimu VC, Witi Ihimaera, Parekura Horomia, John Tamihere (politician), Moana Jackson, Sofia Minson (artist), Wiremu Paraone Turei (the Anglican Bishop of Aotearoa) & Georgina Beyer