CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE - The article by Baka Bina, ‘The Taxing Art of Translation’, has recently stimulated much comment and discussion in PNG Attitude.

Accomplished writers like Michael Dom, Daniel Kumbon, Phil Fitzpatrick and others have offered their own insights and perspectives on the problems inherent in translating Tok Pisin into English.

Johannes and Rose Kundal,  30th wedding anniversary,  2009

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

‘Legend of the Miok Egg: A True Enga Family Tale’ by Daniel Kumbon and Johannes Kulimbao Kundal, paperback, independently published, $26.24. Available here from Amazon Australia

FOREWORD - As an Australian who has enjoyed a long association with Papua New Guinea I tend to assume that I know a lot about the people and their cultures.

It is only when I read books like this one that I realise my knowledge is limited.

JERZEY BROWNING

Just Another Stray by Philip Fitzpatrick, KDP Australia, 279pp, ISBN: 9798782206581, paperback AU$15.40, Kindle AU$1.00. Available here from Amazon Australia

She closed the photo file and stared at the background image on her desktop. It was a photograph of Tom and Sophie in the front paddock with Rosie the dog, Anthony the horse and Pricklebum the sheep.

Sophie was sitting on Anthony’s back and Tom was holding his halter and smiling up at the little girl. 

After several moments she made up her mind. She opened a blank word document and began typing.

“One day my father arrived home with a little girl he had found by the roadside.”

Johannes Kundal and Rose with grandson Victor at their 30th wedding anniversary in 2009

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY – In between finishing my latest novel and starting a new one I’ve been proofreading a fascinating autobiography by Johannes Kundal.

Johannes is a member of Enga Writers Association and his book, The Legend of the Miok Egg, is being edited and readied for publication by author Daniel Kumbon, who founded the group.

A few extracts have been published in PNG Attitude over the last year or so.

Dr Damon Salesa - "We need to honour and be connected to our whanau around the Pacific" (Radio New Zealand)

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA – The new vice-chancellor of Auckland University of Technology (AUT), is keenly aware that he has broken through another glass ceiling.

The son of a factory worker, Dr Damon Salesa made New Zealand history last week as the first Pacific person to be appointed to head a New Zealand university.

Former patrol officer and academic Anthony English adds to the prolific literary output by PNG kiaps in this intriguing novel

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

Death of a Coastwatcher by Anthony English, Monsoon Books, Burrough on the Hill, 2020, 464pp. ASIN ‏B08LR4YGP8. Available here from Amazon Australia: paperback AU$15.75, Kindle AU$9.35

TUMBY BAY - It may be a product of my advanced age but I have developed a distinct aversion to the depiction of violence and other extremes of human behaviour in literature and film.

My preferred recreational reading and viewing nowadays centres mainly on the gentle and whimsical. This is a genre in which the British excel but seems rare in America and Australia.

Natalie (Nat) Whiting enjoys a barbecue with friends at Divine Word University in Madang

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA - Natalie Whiting, the ABC’s Papua New Guinea correspondent, has won a major media award for her news coverage of the outbreak of Covid-19 in the country.

The annual award is given by the Australian Council for International Development’s (ACFID) to recognise a journalist who reports with skill and understanding on international humanitarian issues.

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA - I worked twice for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in my 22-year media career.

The first time was in Papua New Guinea between 1966 and 1970, when I wrote and produced schools broadcasts from the ABC’s studios at Boroko, which are there still, tired by age as I am.

Colonial kiaps brought the law to the people, and often tailored it to align with traditional cultural values and expectations

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

Making Law in Papua New Guinea: The Colonial Origins of a Postcolonial Legal System by Bruce L Ottley, Jean G Zorn and David Weisbrot, Carolina Academic Press, Durham, North Carolina, June 2021, 526pp. ISBN: 9781531005504. Editions: Kindle AU$68.90; Paperback AU$144.75. Kindle edition available from Amazon here

TUMBY BAY - The period just before and just after independence in Papua New Guinea was a time of optimism and promise.

That Pax Australiana - the institutions built by the colonial Administration - would remain intact, as stable and progressive as they were, was never assumed.

John Pilger and Julian Assange at a rally in London, 2011

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - In a recent article by Australian journalist and provocateur John Pilger, there is an interesting observation about the state of the world’s media.

Pilger was writing about the trial of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in a piece published on the Counterpunch website:

'Aborigines using fire to hunt kangaroos' by Joseph Lycett c.1820 (National Library of Australia)

JUDITH WHITE
| Culture Heist

Country: Future Fire, Future Farming by Bill Gammage and Bruce Pascoe, First Knowledges vol 3, Margo Neale (ed), published by Thames & Hudson Aust, 26 October 2021, 224 pages. ISBN-10 ‏1760761559. Available from Amazon here. Paper $16.05. Kindle $8.79

TWEED COAST, NSW - Worried about the prospects for life on earth?

Well, we have just been given a message of hope born out of profound historical knowledge.

Filmmakers Alexandre Berman and Olivier Pollet - "Ophir is an evocative re-telling of the Bougainville conflict and its legacy over the past two decades"

CATHERINE WILSON
| Pacific Journalism Review

Ophir: Decolonize. Revolutionize, directed by Alexandre Berman and Olivier Pollet. Arsam International/Fourth World Films/Ulster University. 2020. 97 minutes. Link here to read and see more about 'Ophir'

CANBERRA - In Ophir, a feature length documentary film about the Bougainville civil war of 1989-1998, French filmmakers Alexandre Berman and Olivier Pollet analyse the devastating conflict and under-reported repercussions which continue to reverberate in the region today.

Ophir in the Old Testament (Genesis 10; 1 Kings 10:22) is a land of great mineral wealth exploited by King Solomon.

In eastern Papua New Guinea, the people of Bougainville also claim Ophir to be the original name of their remote islands.

Bougainvillean woman in a still from 'Ophir',  a controversial documentary about the island's struggle against mining and for independence

KEITH JACKSON

AUCKLAND – ‘Pacific Journalism Review: Te Koakoa’, a peer-reviewed journal examining media issues and communication in the South Pacific, Asia-Pacific, Australia and New Zealand, has made a welcome return to publication after an enforced absence.

Founded by academic and journalist Dr David Robie in 1994 at the University of Papua New Guinea, it was later published at the University of the South Pacific and from 2007-2020 by the Pacific Media Centre at Auckland University of Technology.

Chet Nairene's - "“I was no longer really Western anymore, but not quite yet Eastern. Mid-Pacific, maybe?"

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

Pacific Dash: From Asia Vagabond to Casino King by Chet Nairene, Banana Leaf Books, June 2021. Independently published, paperback, 394 pages. ISBN-13 ‏979-8745977275. Available from Amazon Australia for $26.34 plus postage

TUMBY BAY - Although Chet Nairene cites novelist and travel writer Paul Theroux as his inspiration, Pacific Dash is more reminiscent of the pulp fiction that was popular in the 1960s in works like Harold Robbins' 1966 pot boiler, The Adventurers.

Phil Fitzpatrick - "Shedding the jargon, verbosity and density of the bureaucratic writing style required real effort"

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - Some people like messing about in boats but writing fiction has always been a passion of mine.

Unfortunately it’s very hard to make a living out of writing books in Australia and I’ve had to resort to other means of subsistence.

That’s why reaching retirement age is such a blessing.

Ross Gittins' book, 'A life among budgets, bulldust and bastardry', is available from Amazon

ROSS GITTINS
| Economics Editor, Sydney Morning Herald
| Extracts

SYDNEY - As journalists know, but probably try not to think about, polling shows that, as an occupation, we don’t rank highly.

We’re well down the list, held in roughly the same esteem as politicians, real estate agents and people selling used cars.

MICHAEL DOM
| Ples Singsing

Faumuina Felolini Maria Tafuna’i

My Grandfather is a Canoe by Faumuina Felolini Maria Tafuna'i, July 2021, Flying Geese Pro. Order here for $36.52 (post included)

LAE – Faumuina Felolini Maria Tafuna’i’s first poems appeared in print in ‘Fika – a fictional body of new writing by First Draft Pasefika Writers’ (2008), under the banner of Pacific Arts Creative New Zealand.

Faumuina’s poetry later featured in ‘dried grass over rough-cut logs’, my own collection of 2020, published by the late PNG publisher, poet and essayist, Francis Nii.

Hand-compiling the Kabul Weekly newspaper (Martin Hadlow)

MARTIN HADLOW

SAMFORD VALLEY – Not long ago in PNG Attitude, this photograph was published alongside my article, ‘Taliban had time & are not so benign’.

It shows the Kabul Weekly newspaper being compiled by hand.

The newspaper was established by an extraordinary journalist, Fahim Dashty. And this is his story.

Editor of The Age, Gay Alcorn. Jenny Hocking writes, "The Age failed even to mention that Australia is six months behind the rest of the world in (its) way out of this pandemic"

JENNY HOCKING
| John Menadue’s Pearls & Irritations | Edited

MELBOURNE – Last Thursday, The Age newspaper published a provocative editorial, ‘Victoria cannot go on like this’, which many saw as undermining the Victorian government’s public health response to Covid.

Having done so in the middle of a pandemic, The Age should have expected, and indeed welcomed, a robust response.

Phil Williams was a highly regarded foreign correspondent for the ABC

BRUCE DOVER & IAN MACINTOSH
| Pearls & Irritations

SYDNEY - By ignoring Asia and the Pacific, the Australian media is contributing towards the creation of a more insular and parochial and less understanding country.

Any examination of Australia’s media these days suggests the country’s news editors have adopted an adage attributed to former prime minister Paul Keating – that Asia (or Papua New Guinea) was a place you flew over on the way to Europe – or Washington in our case.

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - The first hint that everything was not well at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) came when the seven o’clock evening television news began to include reports about car crashes and house fires in its line-up.

Not long after that stories about football began to appear in the main bulletin. Suddenly the impact of Covid-19 on the sport, and where the finals would be held, seemed of significant import.

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

Bureaucracy and Democracy: A Political Dilemma by Eva Etzioni-Halevy, Routledge, 278 pages. ISBN-13: 978-0415555371. Paperback, $64.71. Available from Amazon - link here

TUMBY BAY - The only textbook I ever kept from my rather eclectic university studies was Eva Etzioni-Halevy’s ‘Bureaucracy and Democracy: A Political Dilemma’.

I came across it recently while rummaging through my bookshelves for something else and decided to dip into it again.

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA – There are many issues holding back the success and prosperity of the resource rich Papua New Guinea and its adept people.

Chief among them are the entrenched corruption and decision-making acumen that somehow seem to have failed the transition of social and political power from clan to country.

Marie Reay wrote the the first, book on women’s lives in the PNG Highlands. It was not discovered for 50 years (Noel Butlin)

FRANCESCA MERLAN

Wives and Wanderers in a New Guinea Highlands Society by Marie Olive Reay. Francesca Merlan (ed). ANU Press 2014. 268 pages. ISBN 97819250212155 (paperback). Link here for free download

Marie Reay (1922-2004) was an Australian anthropologist, best known for work in the New Guinea Highlands. The manuscript for Wives and Wanderers was discovered in 2011, seven years after her death and 50 years after she had made her last amendments to it. Editor Francesca Merlan did a fine job in bringing it to publication and providing a valuable and stimulating Introduction. Some edited extracts follow - KJ

CANBERRA - Wives and Wanderers presents vivid, ethnographically based narrative of the lives of women of the Wahgi Valley in the Central Highlands of Papua New Guinea.

Marie Reay explores the experiences of courting, attraction, love, marriage, and the combination of male dominance and barely restrained female resentment and rebelliousness.

Clive James

CLIVE JAMES
| Australian Book Review

The late Clive James (1938-2019), born and raised in Sydney, wrote this review of The Best Australian Essays 2002 (edited by Peter Craven and published by Black Inc) for the May 2003 issue of Australian Book Review (ABR). James was a distinguished critic, poet, author, television performer and journalist. He moved to England in 1961 and remained, but with many visits back home. Among his countless publications are nine poetry collections, four novels, a translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy, five volumes of memoirs (most famously Unreliable Memoirs), and many collections of literary and television criticism. He wrote for ABR 20 times between 2001 and 2015. This review is an exemplar of superb essay writing - KJ

CAMBRIDGE, UK - After only four annual volumes, The Best Australian Essays has reached the point where the law of increasing expectations begins to kick in. By now the series has done so much that we want it to do everything.

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - Papua New Guinea has a rich tradition of oral literature which exists to this day.

Vincent Eri’s work of 1970, The Crocodile, was the first novel by a Papua New Guinean, but it seems likely that the first book written by a Papua New Guinean came from the pen of the New Ireland writer, Ligeremaluoga (also known as Osea).

Image from the cover of Red Nation Rising

EVE OTTENBERG
| CounterPunch

Red Nation Rising is a new book investigating the violence of border towns: those white-dominated towns located at the borders of Native American reservations, borders which separate the territory of sovereign Native nations from lands claimed by the United States. And the trigger for violence? The desire to steal the land in which Native people have profound roots: an issue which the people of Papua New Guinea will fully understand. Thanks to Phil Fitzpatrick for the referral

Red Nation Rising: From Bordertown Violence to Native Liberation by Nick Estes, Melanie Yazzie, Jennifer Nez Denetdale & others. PM Press. Paperback. 176 pages. Available from Amazon

PETROLIA, CALIFORNIA - The scope of violence against Native people in the United States is truly staggering.

In fact, it would be safe to say the historical genocide never ended. It is ongoing.

'Mutiny on the 37th Day. We want to go home now. Really?' (Rob Barclay)

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

Cannibals, Conflict & First Contact: 21 Years a New Guinea Patrol Officer by Robin Barclay, Independently Published, 2021, 282 pages. ISBN: 9780646839608. Soft-cover $55, hard-cover $150 plus $18 postage (express $22). Contact the author at [email protected] to purchase copies of the book and its artworks

TUMBY BAY - In the literary tradition of controversial  colonial magistrate CAW Monckton (1872-1936), Rob Barclay’s new book is a politically incorrect version of the kiap experience in pre-independence Papua New Guinea.

Daniel Kumbon and grandson Clinton. Kundiawa,   2021

KEITH JACKSON

The reviews will come but this is not one of them. Daniel Kumbon’s first novel, The Old Man’s Dilemma, was published this week and here I offer the Foreword I wrote accompanied by Daniel’s Preface. The book is now on sale.

The Old Man's Dilemma by Daniel Kumbon, Love, Grief, Happiness & Rebellion: A Modern Day Novel From Papua New Guinea. Independently published, June 2021. Paperback, 188 pages. ISBN-13:‎ 979-8526508247. Link here to purchase from Amazon. Paper $11.39. Kindle $1

NOOSA – Daniel Kumbon is one of Papua New Guinea’s most prominent modern day authors and he has accumulated a substantial collection of non-fiction writing – all of it offering a Melanesian worldview.

Dr David Robie - "I have never experienced something as blatant, destructive and lacking in transparency as this"

DAVID ROBIE
| Café Pacific | Edited extract

Link here to read the complete illustrated chronicle of the Pacific Media Centre by its founding director Dr Robie

AUCKLAND - It really is bizarre. After 26 months of wrangling, stakeholder representations and appeals by Pacific Media Centre (PMC) to Auckland University of Technology, in the end the innovative unit remains in limbo.

In fact, sadly, it seems like a dead end.

John Kuri (Kamnguru Nem) and daughters. A novel that takes the reader into the complex world of Melanesians before the arrival of Western influence

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

Porugl: Son of the Underworld by Kamnguru Nem, Independently published, 183 pages. ISBN: 9798520442332. Available from Amazon Australia, ebook $25.94, paperback $42.83

TUMBY BAY - A gigl ambu is a female spirit who lives in the underworld and travels at night into the outerworld, where humans live, to secretly forage for food.

The underworld is ruled by an ancient serpent, Kerwanba. Among her subjects are spirits, dwarfs and the mysterious smoking makan nem who act as landlords.

Mutiny on the 37th - an illustration from 'Cannibals, Conflict and First Contact' by Rob Barclay

ROB BARCLAY

BLACKBURN, VIC - Cannibals, Conflict and First Contact is my illustrated adventure memoir of a New Guinea patrol officer spanning 21 years from 1958 to 1979.

From the early 1900s to Independence in 1975, New Guinea was Australia’s only colonial experience.

Australia was determined to ‘do it right’, evolving initiatives that were widely copied by other colonial powers as a textbook study of how to bring primitive peoples into the modern world with a minimum of trauma.

Australian prime minister John Gorton Gorton decided to proceed to self-government in PNG despite the economic implications for Australia"

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

Documents on Australian Foreign Policy: Australia and Papua New Guinea: The Transition to Self-Government 1970-1972, Bruce Hunt and Stephen Henningham (eds.), Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, UNSW Press, 2020, 932 pp, eBook (ISBN: 9781742249681), AU$55.51, hardback (ISBN: 9781742237176) AU$89.99, available from New South Books

TUMBY BAY - This impressive volume is the second in a series of three. The first volume published in 2006 covered the period 1966-1969*. The third volume, covering the period 1973-1975, is scheduled for publication in 2022.

The three volumes will no doubt become an important primary source for historians and other professionals but should also be of interest to the readers of PNG Attitude who wish to understand what happened in those formative years.

Radio Rabaul's Nellie Exon, the first Tolai woman broadcaster

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA - The first government broadcasting station in Papua New Guinea, Radio Rabaul, was opened in a hurry in October 1961.

There were no adequate production, transmission and office facilities – a demonstration that there had been little planning behind the bold decision of the colonial Administration to enter the broadcasting field.

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

Stethoscopes, Kiaps and the Law of the Jungle by Dr Malcolm Dunjey, Ark House Press, 2021, 162 pages, ISBN 9780645103168, US$22.99 from Ark House Press.

TUMBY BAY - This short book describes three patrols conducted in the Western District between 1966 and 1967 that were accompanied by Dr Malcolm Dunjey, who was the District Medical Officer based in Daru.

My particular interest stems from the fact that I led patrols into the same areas a few years later when I was based at Olsobip and then Nomad River.

The usual way in which a book like this is written is to gather together primary and secondary sources of information, noting key events and issues, and then develop a narrative into which those elements fit.

CAROLINE EVARI

When I Grow Up by Caroline Evari, illustrated by Clarisa Alu. Independently published, May 2021. Paperback, 24 pages. ISBN-13: 979-8740768373. Available here from Amazon Australia $17.14 (shipped)

PORT MORESBY - My new children’s story book, ‘When I Grow Up’, has just been published and is available.

The book is a Papua New Guinean collaboration between me, artist Clarisa Alu and poet Bradley Gewa.

Shane Baiva - trying to get inspirational books to market

SHANE BAIVA
| Ples Singsing

PORT MORESBY - Young Papua New Guinean authors like Glen Burua, Edward E Isouve, Gerard William Ivalaoa and Nigel V Sine are rising to leave a mark for this generation & generations to come.

I am excited, blessed and so humbled to see these young people doing what they love doing – writing and getting published.

Julius Chan brought in the mercenaries, devalued the kina and hated the Ombudsman Commission

MICHAEL KABUNI
| Academia Nomad

Sir Julius Chan: Playing the Game: Life and Politics in Papua New Guinea

PORT MORESBY – As MP for Namatanai, Julius Chan was one of the founding fathers of Papua New Guinea, twice serving as prime minister (1980– 82 and 1994-97) and currently governor of New Ireland Province.

Unlike Michael Somare in ‘Sana’, who focused much on the principles and traditions that underpinned his statesmanship, ‘Playing the Game’ admits from the outset that it is a book about politics.

DIANE HIRIMA & MINETTA KAKARERE
Academia Nomad | Edited

Michael Somare: Sana, An Autobiography

PORT MORESBY - Sana was first published in 1975, the year of Papua New Guinea’s independence. It traces Sir Michael Somare life from childhood to politics and his leading PNG to nationhood.

Sana (peacemaker) is a metaphor for a life lived both in upholding and fulfilling traditional obligations and enabling the transformation to modernity.

Ken Fairweather - a rollicking story from a man who learned to play the game

RUSSELL KITAU
| Academia Nomad | Edited extracts

Ken Fairweather: Farewell White Man, An Autobiography

PORT MORESBY – ‘Farewell White Man’ is the autobiography of Ken Fairweather CBE who arrived in Papua New Guinea from Melbourne as a young man in 1970.

Fairweather writes about his life and also tells the story of PNG from the end of the colonial period to self-government and independence.

Gerard Ivalaoa with his book ‘70 Reminders of Academic Excellence’ (Ples Singsing)

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA – Young author Gerard Ivalaoa struck it lucky after writing an 85,000 word book on his smartphone in the most difficult of circumstances.

After hearing of his achievement, Digicel PNG presented a new Dell laptop and a Samsung smartphone to Gerard, who is of Gulf parentage and lives on the outskirts of Port Moresby in a settlement with no electricity.

Petats village. "Arriving at Buka Passage on September 25th, 1929, I started work a few days later on the island of Petats, one of the string of coral islets fringing the west coast of Buka. There are no white residents on this island, and it seemed in many ways suitable for my purpose"

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA - Beatrice Mary Blackwood (1889–1975) was born into a wealthy family in England and attended Oxford University, gaining a degree in English and a distinction in Anthropology, a field in which she sought to excel and in which she continued to work at Oxford until a few days before her death.

Blackwood never married and conducted some exacting field trips. Her second, in 1929, was to Buka and Bougainville and she was the first woman anthropologist to travel to the region.

Charles Monckton in 1907

BRADLEY GEWA
| Academia Nomad

Charles Monckton: Some Experiences of a New Guinea Resident Magistrate

PORT MORESBY –Charles Arthur Whitmore Monckton (1873-1936) first arrived in the protectorate of British New Guinea (later known as Papua) in 1895 having been recruited from New Zealand as a magistrate.

Upon Monckton’s arrival, Lieutenant-Governor Sir William MacGregor was unable to employ him.

MICHAEL KABUNI
| Academia Nomad

Ted Wolfers: Race Relations and Colonial Rule in Papua New Guinea
Link here for details of how you can buy the book

PORT MORESBY - Ted Wolfers’ groundbreaking book, Race Relations and Colonial Rule in Papua New Guinea, was republished in 2016, 40 years after the first edition appeared in 1975.

Ted Wolfers wrote the substance of much of this book whilst he was in PNG between 1961 and 1971.

Pauline and Sean Dorney. "This book, even though written by an Australian, is the PNG voice speaking to Australia"

TANYA ZERIGA-ALONE
| Academia Nomad

The death of Michael Somare on 26 February renewed interest in the Papua New Guinea about its own history. To advance this mood, Academia Nomad invited reviews of books about PNG – KJ

Sean Dorney: The Embarrassed Colonialist
Link here to details of how you can buy the book

PORT MORESBY – This 140- page book was published in 2016 by Penguin Books for the Lowy Institute in Australia.

The book is short and easy reading but its eight chapters are packed with much insight about the Australia-Papua New Guinea relationship.

Nikolai Nikolaevich Mikloucho-Maclay

BRADLEY GEWA
| Academia Nomad | Edited

Grand Chief Sir Michael Somare’s death on 26 February created renewed interest in a neglected subject – the history of Papua New Guinea. Many people called for this to be taught at all levels of education.

To advance this idea, Academia Nomad invited readers to submit reviews of books about PNG in nominated categories. This review by Bradley Gewa was submitted in the category ‘Racism and Colonialism’ – KJ

Del Abcede and David Robie at the Pacific Media Centre

TEUILA FUATAI
| The Spinoff | Edited extracts

AUCKLAND - Since 2007, the Pacific Media Centre at Auckland University of Technology has built a solid reputation for its research and reporting on issues throughout the Asia Pacific region.

It has also been a productive training facility for Pasifika journalists and academics.

Literary benefactors Daniel Kumbon and Paul Kurai in their beloved mountains of Enga

CAROLINE EVARI
| Ples Singsing

PORT MORESBY - With only two weeks to go before the awards ceremony for the first Tingting Bilong Mi essay competition, we received a pleasant surprise.

It came by way of a comment on the PNG Attitude story by Pat Levo and Keith Jackson, ‘Women Triumph in First Essay Contest’.

MICHAEL DOM
| Ples Singsing

LAE - I had been following Caroline Evari’s poems on PNG Attitude for some time and was very glad to see her publish ‘Nanu Sina: My Words’ in 2019.

The book is presented in four sections: Conflicts, Relationships, Hope, and Family.

Great writers and great friends, the late Francis Nii and Daniel Kumbon at the 2016 Brisbane writers festival

DANIEL KUMBON

An edited extract from ‘The old man, his wife & the young girl’, a short story in Daniel’s book, ‘Survivor: Alive in Mum’s Loving Arms’, available from Amazon at this link for $16.26 (paperback) or $1.26 (Kindle) - KJ

WABAG - Akali Wakane had met Rosemary at university – he was a law student and she an arts student majoring in social work.

At the time he claimed her as his soulmate, they were both in their second year of study.