It was just in time for National Book Week. The sun’s rays were now blazing through the coconut fronds, casting shadows like tungsten lights through louvre frames. The early morning dew was still on the lawn and under an okari nut tree, the discussion was on – and so were the questions.

Can young Papua New Guinean writers find local organisations to publish their manuscripts? How hard is it for PNG literature to get into libraries when their shelves are filling with books by foreign authors?

For Roka, they were the wrong questions. Seeking local publishers was barking at the wrong door. Getting into libraries was just another corner to be turned.

The first publisher Roka approached had wanted to charge him K6,000 to get Brokenville published, a book that holds the untold raw story of the horrific experience of the Bougainville crisis.

Working with Phil Fitzpatrick and Keith Jackson, Roka got the book published and it went on to win an important award.

What encouragement this was for PNG writers. It made writing a more noble profession for upcoming Papua New Guinean writers starting from scratch. Seeking a publisher has become much easier with the emergence of Pukpuk Publishing. Its book list now contains 20 PNG titles.

So we can marvel at the wonderful rich writing of our writers which has signalled a time for renaissance in Papua New Guinean literature, which had been on the brink of collapse. After 1974, there was a gap filled only by literary inactivity in which the vigour and dynamic development of literature largely disappeared.

Only a few great writers lived on in literature, writers like Russell Soaba who survived as mentors and an inspiration to young PNG writers. Soaba had been among those pioneer PNG writers whose works provided a wakeup call for independence.

After an email discussion with author Sil Bolkin, my hypothesis on PNG literature emerges. Why would PNG celebrate National Book Week with literature that doesn’t have the real essence of its nationality and culture?

Why, after all these years, would we bow down the western paradigm instilled in the books of foreign authors that lacks a reflection of PNG’s unique heritage?

“It was a bit of imperialism from the west aided by the PNG government’s ignorance,” stated Bolkin, “until an old kiap and an old journo came along and PNG literature is taking off again through the Crocodile Prize.”

In this awakening era, PNG literature has writers like Michael Dom, Francis Nii and foresaid Bolkin and Roka to feed the library shelves in schools with books about our own heritage.

This is done under the watchful eyes of surviving PNG writers from long ago like the great Soaba and Dr Winduo who chose literature as a lifelong commitment.

Roka wrote last year: “As the celebration of National Book Week went on in most primary and high schools across PNG on 4-8 August, we forgot to ask ourselves whose literature we were celebrating or what the heritage message and empowerment was for every Papua New Guinean.”

Bolkin made the sensible argument that PNG has a vault of knowledge and information that can be recorded for the world to know and admire. But something has to happen first.

“People simply have to write and get their work published with the aid of Pukpuk Publishing. Why wait?” he asked.

“The PNG government has forgotten that people lived on the island of New Guinea for 50,000 years and that heritage has to be cherished.

“To the up and coming writers, write and write and remember that when you write and publish, you continue to live after you die. Everybody else dies and sinks into headless graves. Writers live on,” Bolkin said.

So what else can we do to assist the revival of PNG literature? Bolkin believes that the PNG government has ensure that literature is protected and enhanced in an upgraded Institute of PNG Studies, National Cultural Commission, National Museum, UPNG Literature Department and in its own publishing arm.

With the inception of the Crocodile Prize and its publications under the watchful eyes of experienced authors and publishers Jackson and Fitzpatrick, the enormous creativity in the minds of Papua New Guinean writers telling of the rich originality of the PNG experience can be read around the world.

I was amazed to read books about my own country written in a new era of writers that use blogging and other social media and have also tapped into traditional publishing with the aid of cutting edge technology.

Although I have never met Bolkin, Nii and Dom in person, their writings show me a photograph of them. Knowing Roka, I know he writes like he breathes.

As a college dormitory buddy at university he would tell me jokingly, “Mate, you publish my story in the daily newspapers, mi laik catch.”

But his story is an inspiration. Young Papua New Guineans need to catch this inspiration and direct it to their home grown literature by taking up the noble art of writing.