Fern Ridge (Safla Rama) Digest

Regis Stella's new novel 2010 Last week we launched a number of great old books during the Buk2Buk Fair staged before the Waigani Seminar at the UPNG campus. The reprints of some of the classics include Sana: Michael Somare’s autobiography, two books written by Amirah Inglis: Karo: The Life and Fate of a Papuan and Not a White Woman Safe: Sexual Anxiety and Politics in Port Moresby 1920-1934, and a number of other books of note to Papua New Guinea. All these books are now on sale at the Unibookshop. In opening the Buk2Buk Fair, the Pro Chancellor of the University of Papua New Guinea and the Chairman of Univentures, the business arm of UPNG, Mr. Camilus Narokobi, challenged Papua New Guineans to write more books. The establishment of the Univentures saw the amalgamation of the UPNG Press, the Unibookshop and the UPNG Printery come under one business umbrella. It is noted that the book trade business is only one aspect of the Univentures Inc. Mr. Narokobi wasted no time in anno...

Take the advice of successful writers if you want to become a great writer. In his book on the art of writing, the science fiction writer, Stephen King has plenty of advice to give to a novice writer. He says: “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There’s no way around these two things that I’m aware of, no shortcut.” King is a slow reader, but makes sure he reads at least 80 books in a year. The book list is crowded with works of fiction. He does not read fiction to study the craft of writing fiction, but to enjoy the stories told in these books. “Yet there is a learning process going on. Every book you pick up has its own lesson or lessons, and quite often the bad books have more to teach than the good ones.” King relates how a book that he read in grade eight changed his life. The writing was so poor King felt he could write a better book than the book he read at that time. King went on to write master piece horror st...

The 2010 Waigani Seminar will take place between August 19 and 20th at the University of Papua New Guinea Main Campus. The theme for this year is Customary Land Tenure and Evolving Democracy in Papua New Guinea. The Waigani Seminar takes place every two years. Many leading legal experts, development consultants, academics, researchers, and customary land owners are expected to meet at the Waigani Campus this month. The organizing committee had decided that this year’s seminar will only run for two days. Past seminars lasted for a week at most. With time reduced to two days it is expected that the seminar will consider the Government’s position in relation to the PNG Vision 2050 Vision, the legal perspective and how laws can effectively govern and protect landowners, the social and cultural complexities of customary land ownership, models of sustainable life systems and sustainable land use and the crucial training for effective land administration. As interesting as the academic d...

I made an honest mistake last week. I said this year was the 20th year of celebrating the National Book Week. An email message from the Governor General of Papua New Guinea gave my head a little jolt. My immediate thought was that His Excellency, the Grand Chief Sir Paulias Matane, our Governor General was about to summon me for making the mistake. I should have written it is now 30 years of celebrating the National Book Week. Sir Paulias Matane is the Patron of the National Book Week and a Board Member of the National Libraries and Archives Board. It is appropriate for me to share in this week’s column my admiration for Sir Paulias’ untiring role in promoting a book culture in Papua New Guinea. Sir Paulias has written more than 42 books. Over the years he has helped many Papua New Guineans to publish their books. Kum Tumun of Minj (1964?) and My Childhood in New Guinea (1972) were the first books His Excellency published. The publication of these books encouraged the Grand Chief S...

The National Book Week is in the first week of August every year. Since 1980 Papua New Guinea has observed the book week in style. Schools all over the country celebrate the importance of books with various activities in creative ways. This is the twentieth year of the National Book Week. The Office of National Libraries and Archives is the coordinating agency for the National Book Week. The theme for this year is Count On Books…Read. It is an encouraging theme for everyone to count on books as an important foundation of their lives. Counting on books is for young learners in schools, educational institutions, and for all Papua New Guineans. National development must go hand in hand with the development of a book culture in Papua New Guinea. Counting on book is a slogan for everyone. It is not only for students, teachers, and those involved in education. Books are important to everyone in the world. Books are for the employed and unemployed population. Books are for those who live ...

Street vending a sign of poverty and poor human development I happen to have in my collection the book edited by Ila Temu entitled Papua New Guinea: A 20/20 Vision. The book was jointly published by the National Centre for Development Studies in the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies at the Australian National University and the National Research Institute. Among the contributors to this book are Rupa Mulina, who discussed the monetary and fiscal policy in Papua New Guinea; Miria Ume, who wrote about the development of physical resource development infrastructure; Kila Ai discussed the experiences of national planning, along with Desh Gupta and Henry Ivarature who discussed the political and economic issues on restructuring decentralization, and Lauatu Tautea’s interesting discussion of the missing link in human resource development. I quickly checked the reference section of the Papua New Guinea 2050 Vision to see if this book was consulted. To my surprise this par...

Media Literacy Workshop Participants in SIL Ukarumpa, 2009. Photo credit: Steven Winduo Writers are never at home with themselves because they live a thousand imaginary lives. Interesting moments do arise with the meeting of fellow writers and others who admire writers. Often, one is left wondering how a Papua New Guinean writer makes sense to other fellow writers. How then does a writer relate to others, especially to the readers of their works and tribal members? The declaration: “So you are a writer. What do you do?” is used by those who do not know what a writer does. Many people tend to think a writer is someone who lives in the world of imagination without any sense of reality. Many people tend to think of a writer as someone who has no time for other interests or occupations in life, except the world of the books. I have lived my life as a writer for the last 25 years. I don’t know the reasons I became a writer or the reasons I chose to write. All I remember now is that m...