Frangipani
Celestine Hitiura VaiteLove, life, families...Tahitian style!
"A feast ... bursting with vitality and charm." - Sydney Morning Herald
Materena Mahi, champion professional cleaner and best listener in all of Tahiti, is usually the one solving the problems. But right now she's that close to throwing her daughter Leilani into the street. 'It doesn't matter what I do,' she confides to Mama Teta, to Cousin Rita, to Mama Loana and to the Virgin Mary Understanding Woman, 'it's always the wrong thing. I'm going taravana!' And if that wasn't enough there's a boy on the horizon. Or so the relatives are saying.
"A fond evocation of Tahitian life. Vaite now lives far from her homeland ... but with Frangipani she conjures up more than a taste of her island upbringing." - Vogue (Australia)
When everything around her is changing, and the traditional Tahitian rules no longer seem to be enough, Materena realises it's going to take more than the Welcome into Womanhood talk to deal with the next generation of Mahi women...
Longlisted for the 2006 Women's Prize For Fiction