Transitions and Transformations: Literature, Politics, and Culture

Transitions and Transformations encapsulates emerging issues on literature, culture, and politics in Papua New Guinea. The essays capture my reflections on the literature and culture of Papua New Guinea. Literature is a window into a society. Through novels, poetry, plays, and short stories writers present an imagined community to readers. The discussions here are by no means the only way of reading Papua New Guinea literature. I do make one statement at the outset, though: this book is a reflection of the transitions and transformations I made in my life as a writer-scholar in Papua New Guinea. In the process I met many friends, students, readers, and mentors, whose creative and intellectual influences rubbed off on me as well. It is a process that helped me understand literature and the kinds of scholarship on cultural-knowledge productions that I deal with in Papua New Guinea. Transitions and Transformations maps the study of Papua New Guinean writers and their writings. It is also a book demonstrating the development of personal scholarship in the field of literary and cultural studies in Papua New Guinea.