A new anthology of speculative fiction by Indigenous Papua New Guinean women explores identity, culture, and imagination.
Untethered, edited by Bridgeman Downs local Dr Kirsten McGavin, features contributions from local writers Vanessa Gordon and Kiri Chan.
Kirsten, whose maternal ancestry is from New Ireland province in PNG, said the idea for the anthology came from a moment of inspiration while browsing a bookshop and seeing an anthology of Black Panther stories.
“I thought to myself, ‘I wish we had one of these for PNG’,” she said. “And then I said to myself, ‘We will. I’m going to do this.’
“I’ve always loved science fiction and fantasy and have been working on novels in those genres, but sometimes, I felt like I was the only one. I just knew other people must be interested in writing sci-fi and fantasy too, so I wanted to bring people out of the shadows so we could all support each other. Now, we have a little community.”
Kirsten contributes two stories to the collection, including Inalienable, about a cyber-anthropologist developing lifelike androids, and Me Time on the Lakatoi Siva.
Representation, Culture, and Identity in PNG Speculative Fiction
She said that Black, Indigenous and Islander characters were so often left out of science fiction and fantasy.
“Representation is very limited, and where we do appear, we’re often relegated to the background, or in a ‘helper’ role, without much agency and without an adventure or motivation of our own,” she said.
She added that she hoped Papua New Guinean and other Black, Indigenous and Islander readers saw themselves in the stories in Untethered.
“One of the writers, Vanessa Gordon, who happens to be a poet, a speaker, a cultural advocate, very knowledgeable Tolai woman (from Rabaul) told me a few weeks ago that she had never felt more Papua New Guinean than when she was writing her story,” she said.
“I would already have called her a cultural expert, so for her to say that to me, it was a very proud moment, to see that these stories have that power to strengthen and amplify cultural connections and sense of belonging.”
The book’s release coincided with Papua New Guinea’s 50th anniversary of independence – a milestone Kirsten described as “a time to reflect on how far we’ve come.”
“One thing I think we’ve done really well is the ‘unity in diversity’ concept, where we’re all one as Papua New Guineans, but we also maintain cultural, ethnic and linguistic ties to our home village,” she said.
“That duality enables us to keep strong identities at both the local and national levels. And when you know where you come from, you know where you’re going.”
Untethered is available at the State Library of Queensland bookshop, the Queensland Museum giftshop and at Kokomo Ink.
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