Novel
Maiba
Russell Soaba · 1985
Synopsis
Maiba is the only child of the last traditional chief of the village of Makawana. As a child she has to wear Western clothes and suffers the mockery of the others; when her father dies, she goes to live with her aunt and uncle. As Christianity gains ground in the village, she finds herself torn, like her people, between the new religion and that of the ancestors, and strives to keep her people united against the opposing forces of custom and modernity.
Context
Published in 1985 by Three Continents Press under the title Maiba: A Papuan Novel, it is the author's second novel, eight years after Wanpis. It pits traditional ways against those of colonisation: The Modern Novel sees religion, alcohol and technology as agents of change, while noting that the author does not blame them for the whole collapse of traditional life. The publisher presents the author as educated in Papua, in Australia and in the United States.
Who it is for
For reading a Papuan novel centred on a woman, about a young woman who tries to hold together a village in the midst of change.
Prizes and reception
The Modern Novel recalls that the heroine's name, Maiba, means “parable of life”.
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