It is challenging to write fiction, based on actual history, than on pure imagination. The challenge is to be as close to history, but aided with literary license to reconstruct a storyline that maps out the narrative. The technique known as fictionalizing history is taken on board to plough the field of history and fiction to make something grow out of it. Land Echoes (2014) is my first novel based on my grandfather, Holonia Jilaka, whose life inspired this book. Although not a biography the novel’s timeline is based on the part of my grandfather’s history. I recorded my grandfather’s story on tape when I was a UPNG student many years ago. The part that I was interested in was the part where he went to the Highlands of Papua New Guinea in 1933 as a shepherd boy with the Catholic missionaries. He spent three years (1933-1935) in Simbu area before being discharged as a mission boy. He then joined the police force, taking his training in Rabaul depot under the instru...
Chronicles the stories of education, books, writing, and reading in the life of Steven Edmund Winduo, PNG writer extraordinaire, literacy advocate, social literary activist, literary scholar, & teacher. Fern Ridge is a translation of Safla Rama, where home is for SEW.