Tonga

A bit of a wash. I didn’t finish An Account of the Natives of the Tonga Islands, which was unconscionably boring, and I didn’t find Kakala (there was a poem by Thaman in Lali and I figured, being not the greatest consumer of poetry, that that was enough). Tales of the Tikongs was moderately charming.

1. Tales of the Tikongs, Epeli Hau’ofa, 1994
2. Lali: A Pacific Anthology, Albert Wendt, ed., 1980
3. An Account of the Natives of the Tonga Islands, William Mariner, 1817

• Kakala, Konai Helu Thaman, 1993 (not read)

Samoa

Samoa! Who knew? Two modern classics, one enjoyable YA romp, and one utter dud (but at least The Challenge wasn’t that long). Samoan literature is well worth the time.

1. Where We Once Belonged, Sia Figiel, 1997
2. Leaves of the Banyan Tree, Albert Wendt, 1979
3. Telesa: The Covenant Keeper, Lani Wendt Young, 2011
4. Lali: A Pacific Anthology, Albert Wendt, 1980
5. The Challenge, Ruperake Petaia, 2011

Tuvalu

Well, this was a failure of the aims of my project. One anthropological text that I didn’t manage to source, and a humorously ironic and utterly forgettable memoir by an English guy who spent two years as the People’s Lawyer of Tuvalu. I wish I had managed to find something written by an actual Tuvaluan, but sadly, I did not.

1. Where the Hell is Tuvalu?, Philip Els, 2002

• Songs of Tuvalu, Gerd Koch, 2000 (not read)

Niue

I really, really wanted to find a copy of The Shark That Ate the Sun, but it simply couldn’t be done, leaving me with a very small selection of poetry collected in Lali as my sole representative of Niue, a tiny island paradise with a precipitously declining population.

1. Lali: A Pacific Anthology, Albert Wendt, 1980

• The Shark That Ate the Sun, John Puhiatau Pule, 1992 (not read)