Grace currently lives in Hongoeka Bay, Plimmerton. In 2006 she was one of three honourees in the 2006 Prime Minister's Awards for Literary Achievement. Grace was awarded the Distinguished Companion of The New Zealand Order of Merit in the 2007 Queen's Birthday Honours. She is the 2008 recipient of the prestigious biennial Neustadt International Prize for Literature.

Grace is a patron of the Coalition for Open Government. The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English refers to her prose as distinctive in its "spare style based on the speech structures of Maori English" .

• Mutuwhenua: The Moon Sleeps, (Longman Paul, 1978; Penguin Books [NZ] Ltd., 1986; Women's Press Livewire, 1988; Cambridge University Press, 1991).
• Potiki, (Penguin Books [NZ] Ltd., 1986; Women's Press Ltd. [Great Britain], 1987); translated into Finnish, (Kaantopiiri Helsinki, 1990); German, (Unionsverlag Zurich, 1993); French, (Arlea, 1993); Dutch, (De Geus, 1994); UHP Hawaii, 1995.
• Cousins, (Penguin Books [NZ] Ltd., 1992); German translation, (Unionsverlag Zurich, 1997).
• Baby No-eyes (1998)
• Dogside Story (2001)
• Tu (2004)

Short story collections

• Waiariki, (Longman Paul, 1975; Penguin Books [NZ] Ltd, 1986); first collection of short stories by a Maori woman writer.
• The Dream Sleepers, (Longman Paul, 1980; Penguin Books [NZ] Ltd., 1986).
• Electric City and Other Stories (Penguin Books [NZ] Ltd., 1987)
• Selected Stories (Penguin [NZ] Ltd., 1991)
• The Sky People (Penguin Books [NZ] Ltd., 1994; Women's Press Ltd. Great Britain)

• Collected Stories, (Penguin Books [NZ] Ltd., 1984); first three short story volumes.

• Text for Wahine Toa, a book of paintings by Robyn Kahuikiwa, stories with women in Maori mythology (William Collins, 1984; Penguin Books [NZ] Ltd.; Viking Pacific, 1991).

Children's books

• The Kuia and the Spider/ Te Kuia me te Pungawerewere (1981)
• Watercress Tuna and the Children of Champion Street/ Te Tuna Watakirihi me Nga Tamariki o te Tiriti o Toa (1984)
• The geranium (1993)