Russell Soaba

This novel is set during a turning point in the indigenous village life of Papua New Guinea. Maiba is a girl orphaned after the death of her father, the last chief of Makawana village. Despite the prominence of her late father, Maiba is an outcast with very little support from her people and is depicted as a disheveled tomboy with a runny nose. Over the course of the story the community is torn as some are drawn to Western modernism (which arrives with Christianity and capitalism) and yet show more Maiba emerges to try to defend the community against the forces tearing it apart. The novel features grim details of violence and sexual assault, as well as more benign passages describing the landscape and traditional ways of Papua New Guinea. show less