TY - JOUR
T1 - From Wellington to Bougainville
T2 - Migrating Meanings and the Joys of Approximation in Lloyd Jones’ Mister Pip
AU - Norridge, Zoe Cecilia
PY - 2010/3
Y1 - 2010/3
N2 - First published in 2006, Lloyd Jones’ novel about village life on the Pacific island of Bougainville has been the subject of enthusiastic critical reception by the international media. However, it has rarely been discussed in the academic context of Papua New Guinean literature. This article will examine how the New Zealand-born novelist empathizes with his principle character, a young girl from the island, and what role this gesture of identification plays in the literary response to the Bougainville secession struggle. Highlighting the novel’s colonial and postcolonial context, I argue that Mister Pip is less a narrative about the specifics of life on the island and more a story about other stories and their potential to allow us into the lives of others, even when that invitation is politically complex and fraught with ideological implications.
AB - First published in 2006, Lloyd Jones’ novel about village life on the Pacific island of Bougainville has been the subject of enthusiastic critical reception by the international media. However, it has rarely been discussed in the academic context of Papua New Guinean literature. This article will examine how the New Zealand-born novelist empathizes with his principle character, a young girl from the island, and what role this gesture of identification plays in the literary response to the Bougainville secession struggle. Highlighting the novel’s colonial and postcolonial context, I argue that Mister Pip is less a narrative about the specifics of life on the island and more a story about other stories and their potential to allow us into the lives of others, even when that invitation is politically complex and fraught with ideological implications.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=77953594611&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/0021989409359854
DO - 10.1177/0021989409359854
M3 - Article
SN - 0021-9894
VL - 45
SP - 57
EP - 74
JO - The Journal of Commonwealth Literature
JF - The Journal of Commonwealth Literature
IS - 1
ER -