Book Review: A Gift for Ana, by Jane Va’afusuaga

Available in selected bookshops.

This book is a beautifully written narrative which gives insight into a Samoan family saying goodbye to someone they love. Ana is a young girl who is returning to her family’s homeland in Samoa because her family member had passed away. It is a book which tells a story from the Pacific so our children can see themselves in what they read.

It is a great teaching resource to help children understand what they might experience in a similar situation. The author quietly explains Ana’s story in a no-nonsense, straight-forward manner from the first page. It provides answers to many questions about what might happen when a child returns home and will also provoke many questions which can be talked through together.

The rich story is accompanied by stunning coloured lithographic prints which boldly sit alongside the text. We are excited that this book is also available in Samoan so our families can read this at home in their mother tongue.

The author has explored the delicate family relationships which develop when families live apart when Ana begins to know her grandmother. Ana’s grandmother tells Ana the stories of her family and you are left with hope and peace dispute the tough issues the book raises.

Reviewed by Sara Croft

A Gift for Ana
by Jane Va’afusuaga
Published by Little Island
ISBN: 9781877484247

 

 

 

Book Review: Out of the Vaipe, the Deadwater – A Writer’s Early Life, by Albert Wendt

Available in bookshops nationwide.

A short and concise history of the very early life of Albert Wendt, Out of the Vaipe, the Deadwater gives the reader a great insight into boyhood split between Samoa and New Zealand.

The first chapter poses an interesting question – how reliable is an autobiography? Wendt acknowledges and defiantly states “Don’t trust me, be suspicious. I’m deliberately leaving out most of the story – it’s none of your business, and I don’t want to hurt the people I love.” I found this simply wonderful – for the author to say from the get-go, “it’s not the whole story and don’t expect it” is rare these days, and I took the rest of the book with a pinch of salt.

Covering his early life in Samoa and scholarship to New Zealand, Wendt pays homage to teachers and places that influenced his life and his writing. At New Plymouth Boys’ High School he published poems for the first time, and wrote and published more during his time at Ardmore Teachers’ College. The Wendt the world reads and enjoys would not exist without the New Zealand education he worked so hard to gain a scholarship for.

The suburb of Apia, Samoa where Albert Wendt spent his boyhood is something of a myth to Wendt now – “Is the Vaipe I’ve created in my stories, poetry and novels really the Vaipe that existed and exists in real life? Or is it real only in my books? Where does fact end and fiction begin?” I feel that this is probably true of many hometowns for people – while we’re not all writers, we sometimes morph and create a place different to remember than the one we actually grew up in. Wendt has immortalised his own upbringing through his writing, excerpts of which are scattered perfectly throughout the book.

On top of this, Wendt has delved in to deeply personal matters – a near death experience in the swimming pool, intense exam stress, severe home sickness in a foreign land very far from home, a mother’s death at a young age,and the somewhat reluctant acceptance of the Maualaivao title.

The uncertainty of the truth to this account didn’t diminish my enjoyment for Wendt’s story; I love a good life story, even if I don’t see the whole picture. There is so much heart thrown in to the pages, and every reader will take something away from such a well-written and informative tale.

Reviewed by Kimaya McIntosh

Out of the Vaipe, the Deadwater – A Writer’s Early Life
by Albert Wendt
Published by BWB Texts
ISBN 9780908321223

Wild Dogs and Other Creatures: Tusiata Avia at the Dunedin Writers and Readers Festival

Chaired by David Eggleton, Wild Dogs and Other Creatures was a chance to hear poet Tusiata Avia (right) in action. The event began with a lengthy appreciation by Eggleton of Avia’s work so far. He discussed her two previous collections, Wild Dogs Under My Skirt and Blood Clot, and also noted her tendency to portray Samoa as a kind of paradise, but with something festering below. Avia also noted that she is quite an intuitive writer, and Eggleton suggested that in fact her poetry almost reads like a diary, though there was a strong dramatic presence to her poetry which lent itself to the performance of her work.

Despite this rather in depth introductory talk from Eggleton, it was clear that the audience was hungry to hear Avia perform her poetry. She first performed four pieces from Wild Dogs, and right from the beginning her experience on stage came through. Three of the four poems were in different voices − two from the voice of a child − and Avia changed her voice, stance and accent to match the different voices, really acting the poems out in a tremendously engaging way. She then read two poems from Blood Clot.

However, for me, the most engaging performances were those of her new poems, which she hoped to have included in a future collection. One of these poems described a woman’s conflicting emotions regarding being raped twenty-five years earlier, and the poem, and Avia’s performance of it, was truly moving. This poem, and one of the earlier poems she read which discussed child abuse, showed Avia’s total lack of fear about confronting difficult issues − in fact, she later said that she felt she had a (self-imposed) role as an artist to bring things to the surface.

Her magnetic performances were cheered and applauded by the audience, and I can only hope that she can return for a future DWRF. It’s also worth noting that she was one of only a very few non-Pakeha/European writers invited to the Festival, and certainly she was the only one to headline her own event. The very warm appreciation of the crowd at Wild Dogs showed, however, that work about Maori and Pasifika people would be welcomed, and quite rightly celebrated.

Event attended and reviewed by Feby Idrus, on behalf of Booksellers NZ 

• Wild Dogs Under My Skirt (VUP) 9780864734747
• Bloodclot (VUP) 9780864735935