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Francophone Writing from the South Pacific

June 2024

Picture of Moorea's mountains and sea.

Photo by Vilallonga, CC BY-SA 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons

This collection includes prose and poetry by writers from French Polynesia, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, and Wallis and Futuna.

A picture of Moorea's mountains and sea.

Photo from Pickpic

The Flip Side of the Postcard: Francophone Pacific Writing

By Jean Anderson

In this introduction to our collection of writing from the Francophone Pacific, Jean Anderson advocates for a view of the region that encompasses both its linguistic diversity and its interconnectedness.

A canoe sits in a bay in French Polynesia.

Nico Smit, via Unsplash

The Lagoon of Languages

By Flora Aurima Devatine

Languages are merely lagoons, bays, inlets, linked together by currents, passes, channels.

Translated from French by Jean Anderson

Multilingual

A merry-go-round spins in the darkness.

I Shall Live in the Night

By Olivia Duchesne

I say: I’m lying for you, Lisé. You say: You’re lying for your mother, Nesta.

Translated from French by Siân Robyns

A pencil sketch of a couple embracing each other.

Art by Bramine Hubrecht Courtesy of the Rijksmuseum. Public domain

Behind Closed Doors

By Déwé Gorodé

After several drinks and hours of hot, slow dances where they melted into each other, he offered to take her home.

Translated from French by Mandy Hewett

A blurred picture of a person walking in a street at night.

Art by David Hammons. Courtesy of Harvard University Art Museums. Public domain.

Black and Blue

We shall sleep no more on the pillow of echoing pathos

Translated from French by Jean Anderson

MultimediaMultilingual

A picture of the mast of a Hōkūleʻa (a Polynesian double-hulled voyaging canoe.)

Picture by Miliefsk, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Regeneration: The Seeds of Life

By Virginie Hoifua Te Matagi Tafilagi-Takala

Intrepid long canoes leap out / Driving for the coral gap

Translated from French by Colin Anderson

Multilingual

A picture of three military helicopters flying.

Picture by Elen Schurova, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

i had a country once

By Chantal T. Spitz

and beneath the new sci-fi city lie rotting the ruins and corpses of olden days

Translated from French by Jean Anderson

A picture of a street dog and the shadow of a person wearing a hat on a wall beside it.

Photo by Nesrin Öztürk. Public Domain.

Deadbeat

Did he once have a wife? Most likely.

Translated from French by Colin Anderson