Among the first published works of Fijian literature, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, were Raymond Pillai's and Subramani's short stories (in English) and Pio Manoa's poetry (in English and in Fijian). The emergence of Fiji's written literature (as distinct from oral literature) coincides with the country's transition to independence in 1970.
English is a West Germanic language that was first spoken in early medieval England and eventually became a global lingua franca. It is named after the Angles, one of the Germanic tribes that migrated to the area of Great Britain that later took their name, as England. Both names derive from Anglia, a peninsula in the Baltic Sea. The language is closely related to Frisian and Low Saxon, and its vocabulary has been significantly influenced by other Germanic languages, particularly Norse, and to a greater extent by Latin and French.
Fijian is an Austronesian language of the Malayo-Polynesian family spoken by some 350,000–450,000 ethnic Fijians as a native language. The 2013 Constitution established Fijian as an official language of Fiji, along with English and Hindi, and there is discussion about establishing it as the "national language", though English remains the official language. Fijian is a VOS language.
Literature, most generically, is any body of written works. More restrictively, literature refers to writing considered to be an art form or any single writing deemed to have artistic or intellectual value, often due to deploying language in ways that differ from ordinary usage.
In 1968, the founding of the University of the South Pacific, whose main campus was in Fiji's capital Suva, provided a stimulus for Fijian (and, more widely, Pacific Islander) literature. Creative writing courses and workshops were set up. The South Pacific Arts Society was founded at the University in 1973, and published Pacific Islander literature (poetry and short stories) in the magazine Pacific Islands Monthly . In 1974, the Society founded the publishing house Mana Publications, followed in 1976 by the art and literature journal Mana. The journal published anthologies of Fijian poetry. Playwright Vilsoni Hereniko's work also began to appear in this print at this time.
The University of the South Pacific (USP) is an intergovernmental organisation and public research university with locations spread throughout a dozen countries in Oceania. It is an international centre for teaching and research on Pacific culture and environment. USP's academic programmes are recognised worldwide, attracting students and staff from throughout the Pacific region and internationally.
Suva is the capital and largest metropolitan city in Fiji. It is located on the southeast coast of the island of Viti Levu, in the Rewa Province, Central Division.
Creative writing is any writing that goes outside the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, or technical forms of literature, typically identified by an emphasis on narrative craft, character development, and the use of literary tropes or with various traditions of poetry and poetics. Due to the looseness of the definition, it is possible for writing such as feature stories to be considered creative writing, even though they fall under journalism, because the content of features is specifically focused on narrative and character development. Both fictional and non-fictional works fall into this category, including such forms as novels, biographies, short stories, and poems. In the academic setting, creative writing is typically separated into fiction and poetry classes, with a focus on writing in an original style, as opposed to imitating pre-existing genres such as crime or horror. Writing for the screen and stage—screenwriting and playwriting—are often taught separately, but fit under the creative writing category as well.
Among Fiji's most noted writers are Satendra Nandan, author of poetry, short stories and the semi-autobiographical novel The Wounded Sea, published in 1991. Fiji poet Sudesh Mishra "combines classical Indian poetic forms with an English peppered with Hindi and Fijian words"; his collections of poems include Tandava (1992) and Rahu (1997). Larry Thomas is a contemporary playwright and director. His 1998 play The Anniversary Present has been described as "captur[ing] the words and rhythms and creative power of the basilectal 'Fiji English' many of his marginalised characters speak: the young, the unemployed, disempowered women and men". Joseph Veramo is a contemporary novelist, whose works include the novel Moving Through the Streets (1994), the children's book The Shark, and Black Messiah, a collection published in 1989 which includes short stories and a novella.
Dr Satendra Pratap Nandan is a Fiji Indian academic, writer and former politician.
An autobiographical novel is a form of novel using autofiction techniques, or the merging of autobiographical and fictive elements. The literary technique is distinguished from an autobiography or memoir by the stipulation of being fiction. Because an autobiographical novel is partially fiction, the author does not ask the reader to expect the text to fulfill the "autobiographical pact". Names and locations are often changed and events are recreated to make them more dramatic but the story still bears a close resemblance to that of the author's life. While the events of the author's life are recounted, there is no pretense of exact truth. Events may be exaggerated or altered for artistic or thematic purposes.
Sudesh Mishra is a contemporary Fijian-Australian poet and academic.
