Some authors of yesterday and today
Let's start with Raymond Jacquet, journalist, novelist and essayist born on September 28, 1917 in Paris. A stopover planned for a few weeks in Tahiti is extended for a few years. His passage on the island enabled him to found the first independent newspaper in French Polynesia, the Courrier des EFO. In order to make the indigenous population aware of the political realities, he denounces, among other things, the abuses committed by the colonial administrators. He writes many novels under different pseudonyms: Jean-Raymond Jaureguia, Vaema Teikimatua, Nicolas Champel, or under his pseudonym of journalist Ambroise Yxemerry. Here are some of his novels to discover: Marins en campagne (1941), Services at sea (1941), L'Ange et la femme 1946), Une fille dans les vignes (1956) or La Tavana (1985). Raymond Jacquet is considered a visionary.
Let's now take a look at Taaria Walker, also known as Pare, born on the island of Rurutu in 1930. In 1999 she wrote a book, Mémoires d'avenir d'une île australe, in which she discusses the customs of her island past and present. Legends and history blend brilliantly with her own memories. It is a true literary testimony constructed like a patchwork, a book that has since become a must in Polynesian literature.
The first half of the 20th century also saw the birth of Marie-Claude Tessier, born in Hyères in 1939 to a Tahitian father. Her life was made up of travels, departures and returns to Papeete. In the 1980s, while working for Unicef, she wrote bilingual French-English books on health education in schools. At the same time, she wrote a biography on the painter Nicolaï Michoutouchkine, and it is especially from the end of the 1990s that she became involved in a literary life. She first became involved in the promotion of local literature with the creation of the magazine Litterama'ohi, and then, in 2004, published her autobiographical novel Hutu Painu: Tahiti, racines et déchirements (Hutu Painu: Tahiti, roots and tears). In it, she recounts her life as a little half-breed girl who has to adapt to different ways of life. In 2006, she published the novel Atea Roa, Voyages inattendus, where humour and tenderness meet on the road to the beloved Pacific!
Women are definitely not outdone in French Polynesia, as Flora Aurima-Devatine's work shows. Born in 1942 in Taurita, a peninsula in Tahiti, she is a member of the Académie Tahitienne and has been a teacher, researcher and writer. She has written, among other things, traditional poems in Tahitian and other poems in French. For those who wish to discover her, it is worth reading Vaitiare, Humeurs (1980), Tergiversations et rêveries de l'écriture orale (1998) or Au vent de la piroguière (2017) for which she received the Heredia Prize from the Académie française.
We could also mention Louise Peltzer, born in 1946 on the island of Huahine. This doctor of linguistics and university professor has been Minister of Culture and Higher Education since 1998. In 1985, she wrote Légendes Tahitiennes and a collection of poetry entitled Chant-Le besoin de lumière (Pehepehe - Te Hia'ai-ao). In 1993, she published another collection entitled Chant - La persévérance dans l'effort (Pehepehe- Tutava). Two years later, Hymnes à mon île was released in French. The same year, her greatest work Lettre à Poutaveri is published. This historical novel - a tribute to Bougainville - depicts the arrival of the missionaries in Tahiti and also evokes the passage from the oral to the written word
Let us also mention the metropolitan Chantal Kerdilès and her novels Itinéraire polynésien (1995), Voyance sous les Tropiques (1997), Yucca City Blues (2004). The author finds her source of inspiration in Tahiti and in Polynesia in general
Michou Chaze - also in love with her island - was born in Papeete in 1950 to a metropolitan father and a Tahitian mother. She has written collections of short stories such as Vai la rivière au ciel sans nuages (1990); Où vont les oiseaux quand il pleut (2000); La Ballade de Hambo (2000) and also a collection of poetry Toriri (2000). She who was raised as a Tahitian tints her writings with sadness and regret for the Tahiti she knew
L'Île des rêves écrasés (1991), Hombo, transcription of a biography (2002), Elles, terre d'enfance, roman à deux incres (2011) are works by Chantal T. Spitz. Her writing is inspired by orality. The author also fights against neo-colonialism. She works her writing with care and handles language and forms with originality
On the men's side, let us mention Alex du Prel, born in 1944 in the United States and naturalized French in 1983. This adventurous writer discovered Polynesia during his sailing crossings. He is the director of the magazine Tahiti-Pacific. His short story collections include: Le Bleu qui fait mal aux yeux and other short stories (1988), Le Paradis en folie (1989), La Fragilité de l'innocence (1994).
But also Moetai Brotherson born in 1969 in Tahiti. Multiple origins run in his veins and offer him a great richness and open-mindedness. After studying engineering, he moved to New York and decided to return to Tahiti after the 2001 attacks. Even though he has been writing since his teenage years, it was in 2007 that he published his first novel Le Roi Absente (The Absent King ) in which he writes in the tradition of Polynesian orality. Like Chantal Spitz, he wishes to give a voice to the Polynesian people through his writings. One of his struggles is indeed to see his archipelago liberated
Finally, let us mention a young author born in 1983 in Papeete: Nathalie Heirani Salmon-Hudry. In 2012, she tells her story in the novel I was born dead. She tells the story of the medical error that disabled her for life, but also her life, her sadness and her happiness. A moving testimony!
