I am a writer and scholar, living and breathing in Papua New Guinea—a place of reference, belonging, and inspiration. Intermittent breaks and peregrinations from homeland are part of my life, often lasting from a couple of days to a number of years. I write poetry, short stories, essays, and reviews of books that interest me. I have a number of publications to my credit. I am interested in Pacific literary and cultural diversity, folklore and indigenous knowledge systems, literacy and language issues, books and libraries in PNG, writing and publishing, media and communication technologies in PNG.
With so much going on around us we tend to forget about important foundations of our history. I could not get out of my mind the much neglected discussion on the first Papua New Guinean writer. Every now and then we need to acknowledge the important parts of our history as we move forward. I would like to acknowledge the first Papua New Guinean to write a book in the 1930s. A New Irelander by name of Ligeremaluoga wrote and published his book under the title The Erstwhile Savage: An Account of the Life of Ligeremaluoga in 1932. Ligeremaluoga is from Kono village in New Ireland Province. Ligeremaluoga’s book is by all accounts the first written account by a South Pacific Islander. Most of what we know as Pacific writing is dated to the 1960s and 1970s. Last month I presented a paper at the University of Hawaii to discuss another early Papua New Guinean writer by name of Ahuia Ova of Hanuabada, who published his memoirs in 1939, six years after Ligeremaluoga’s autobiography. Both