Poetry · A way to begin
Black Stone
Grace Mera Molisa · 1983
Synopsis
Poems in English, often short and political in tone, written in the first years of independence. They attack colonial management and neocolonialism, the way the press and journalists from the metropoles look at Port-Vila, and custom and marriage as they weigh on women. The poem that gives the book its title makes the black stone, cooled lava, the image of what remains and cannot be moved.
Context
The first book by its author, it was published in 1983 in Suva, by Mana Publications, three years after independence. Several poems deal with colonial administration, neocolonialism or the press, others with distance and success. In 1997, the Kanak poet Déwé Gorodé translated a selection of them into French, published in Nouméa by Grain de sable under the title Pierre noire. Molisa then founded her own publishing house, Blackstone Publishing, to give a voice to the women of the Pacific.
Who it is for
Short, direct poems, close to political prose according to some readers; a French translation exists.
Prizes and reception
Translated into French as early as 1997; its author, nicknamed “Amazing Grace”, is regarded as a major intellectual figure of the Pacific.
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