POWER TO THE PEOPLE - EVERYONE CAN BE A PUBLISHER

Rivalries and government censorship, scholarship and different points of view mean people are interested in telling their side of the story. Despite the considerations listed above, publishing has become easier in the Pacific Islands. Just as the Gutenberg press brought about a revolution in publishing, so too have innovations such as computers; word processing, layout and graphics programmes; photocopiers and quick binding machines. Publishing houses have been demystified and desanctified. Where once only large operations, such as churches, governments and universities, were able to publish, now civic action and interest groups, families and individuals publish their own work. Although much publishing may not be profitable, it is more accessible to the public. Individuals and small groups are able to seek subsidies and often with donated labour, they publish books. Examples are the South Pacific Creative Arts Society, Women and Fisheries Network, Sunblossom Press and Aruligo Book Centre.


South Pacific Creative Arts Society (SPCAS)

SPCAS was founded in 1972 by a group of individuals at the University of the South Pacific who were interested in promoting creative arts. These included Marjorie Crocombe, Jo Nacola, Howard Van Trease and others. SPCAS remains a loose affiliation of interested and dedicated individuals who donate their labour to help publish creative work. Besides publishing Mana Annual of Creative Writing which later evolved to Mana: a South Pacific Journal of Language and Literature, SPCAS has published 49 books, with more in preparation.
     The Society continues mostly due to labour, expertise and time volunteered by members, colleagues and friends of SPCAS. It pays F$ 270.00 per quarter (F$ 1080.00 per year) to the Institute of Pacific Studies for services rendered by IPS's Publications Fellow and for storage space within the IPS building.

Women and Fisheries Network

The Network began from discussions at meetings in May and August 1992 in Suva, Fiji. The Pacific Office of the Canadian University Service Overseas (CUSO) sought funds from the International Centre for Ocean Development (ICOD) to develop a project that would address women's participation and contribution in fisheries. The group found that "some agencies were only too aware that including a women's component in project proposals was a sure way of securing donor funding; once funding was obtained, however, women's concerns were rarely addressed" (Matthews 1995:172). (The same could be said of books on the Pacific Islands: Agencies fund many books 'to help the Pacific Islands', but few are written by Pacific Islanders.)
     The Network was formally constituted in June 1993, and it undertakes research and advocacy. In 1995 it had 52 members, and it published Fishing for Answers: Women and Fisheries in the Pacific Islands.

Sunblossom Press
Sunblossom Press, under the leadership of Kauraka Kauraka, and the Cook Islands Arts Association have published several small books, such as E Au Tua Taito No Pukapuka. The books were written in Cook Islands Maori and published on Rarotonga. Only 500 of each were printed; they are on sale in shops in the Cook Islands. Although Kauraka realized that economies of scale would be greater with larger print runs, Sunblossom Press and the Arts Association were unable to commit more funds and were unsure of the market (Kauraka 1995).

Aruligo Book Centre
Dorothy Prince ran this bookshop in Honiara, Solomon Islands. She sold good books and encouraged the work of local writers. For example, Aruligo Book Centre published Jully Sipolo's Praying Parents. According to Murray Chapman (1993), Prince was able to keep the store running because she hadcontracts from the Ministry of Education for large amounts of school texts and stationery. Once the Ministry withdrew its contracts, the store and its publishing could not survive and folded.
     These are just a few of the growing number of publishers in the Pacific Islands. Grace Mera Molisa founded Black Stone Publications in Vanuatu. Pesi and Mary Fonua started Vava'u Press in Tonga. The Friendly Islands Book Shop in Nuku'alofa is publishing for a literate and demanding local market. On a recent visit to Tonga, I noticed that Liufau Vailea Saulale (1994, 1995a&b) had collected his sermons and published them as three separate books (Crowl 1996). Every book and every publishing house in the Pacific Islands has a history. Be it from the individual to the international, politics has played a role in publishing.

NEXT ]   [ CONTENTS ]



© Linda Crowl 1996
This article was originally printed in the Fiji Library Association Journal, No. 35, 1996

  trout