Remembering Father and Me

34 years ago, Marlene lost her Father to an assassination. This was during the Bougainville Crisis, that saw friends, families, clans and countries riven by greed and power. Divisions driven by colonial economic and environmental disruption. Her Father, a great Chief, was much loved and revered by his beloved daughter. He knew his lands, his rivers, his peoples, and every atom that passed through them. Ms Dee Gray Potoura shares his story, and others, all enveloped by the spiritual life of the peoples and the great majesty of their forest lands. A rich culture from a millennia of living in paradise and ancient knowledge. Ms Dee Gray Potoura started writing to heal; and became a prolific author, recording her culture and the surrounding spiritual world. And finally, 34 years after the passing of her Father, she has been able to finish and release the story to the world. A landmark publication. This is a writer at the height of her descriptive power; with structural nuance. Stories unimaginable elsewhere without the work of the writers of the Greater Pacific. History, told by the people, not the casual gaze of a colonialist. Remembering is raw and visceral, a glowing gift to literature from a doyen of the Greater Pacific. Written from a heart whose rhythm will echo everywhere.