what is Ni-Vanuatu literature?
It seems easy to imagine: oral traditions, legends, songs, myths concerning the origin of the world... But there are surprizing things about Vanuatu. It is one of the most linguistically diverse countries in the world, with around 110 indigenous languages spoken across its islands. Given that the country has a population of just over 300,000 people, this means that Vanuatu has the highest density of languages per capita anywhere on the planet. There are several causes that explain this situation. Firstly, Vanuatu is an archipelago of 83 islands, many of which are small and separated by stretches of ocean. In the past, communities on different islands had little contact with each other, leading to the development of distinct languages in relative isolation. Yet even within the same island, mountainous terrain, dense forests, and difficult travel conditions created barriers between groups, allowing separate languages to evolve over time. Traditional Ni-Vanuatu society is highly community-based, with strong clan and village identities. Each community historically had its own language, reinforcing linguistic separation. Today, however, there are three main languages ensuring the everyday communication: English, French, and Bislama, a creole language derived from English, but with Melanesian grammar. It is the most widely spoken language and serves as Vanuatu’s main lingua franca.
Long before the written word arrived on these islands, the Ni-Vanuatu people preserved their knowledge, history, and spiritual beliefs through oral storytelling, song, and dance. These stories were not just narratives; they were sacred texts, embedded in ceremonies, rituals, and the landscape itself. They spoke of creation, of spirits and ancestors, of the wisdom of chiefs, and of the close relationship between humans and nature. Totems, sand drawings, and carvings also played a role in transmitting meaning, serving as visual storytelling methods that carried cultural memory across generations.
With the arrival of European missionaries and colonial powers—first the British and French, who ruled Vanuatu as the New Hebrides—came the written word. Missionaries translated the Bible into local languages, and literacy was introduced as part of their religious mission. Yet, for decades, writing remained largely confined to Christian texts, colonial reports, and administrative documents, and it did not yet reflect the voice of the Ni-Vanuatu people.
Under the joint British-French colonial administration, local culture was often suppressed. The people of Vanuatu were taught the literature of Europe but not their own stories. However, in the background, the oral tradition persisted, resisting the erasure of indigenous knowledge. The struggle for independence in the 1970s and 1980s sparked a cultural and literary awakening. Yet early written literature supposedly dates back to the 1960s as part of a larger Pacific Islander movement, concentrated at the University of South Pacific created in Fiji. The movement mostly led to the creation of short forms of expression, such as poems and tales. As Vanuatu prepared to become a sovereign nation in 1980, Ni-Vanuatu writers and intellectuals sought to reclaim their identity, language, and storytelling traditions in a new, written form. Literature became a tool of decolonization, a way to affirm the uniqueness of Vanuatu’s people and their right to tell their own history.
One of the key figures in this movement was Grace Mera Molisa (1946-2002), a poet, activist, and political leader whose works fiercely denounced colonial oppression and gender inequality. One of the problems of the postcolonial society is the status of women, their economic rights, domestic violence, and all the rest. No wonder her poetry collection Black Stone (1983) was groundbreaking—not only as one of the first major literary works by a Ni-Vanuatu writer but also as a powerful expression of postcolonial resistance and feminist consciousness, audible on an international scale, with special visibility in Australia. Molisa’s poems, written both in Bislama and in English, were direct, urgent, and uncompromising, setting the stage for future writers to use literature as a form of activism.
Around the same time, Marcel Melthérorong, a writer of mixed Ni-Vanuatu and French heritage, began exploring themes of identity, migration, and cultural hybridity. His Tôghàn (2007) is considered the first Vanuatuan novel, even if it has only 80 pages. It delves into the experience of a young Ni-Vanuatu man navigating between different worlds—traditional village life, urban modernity, and the lingering presence of colonial influence. The title Tôghàn is also the name of its hero. In Camp Est in Nouméa (New Caledonia), a sort of regional prison or re-education camp, he has an opportunity to meet a lot of people belonging to diverse ethnic groups. So to speak, he is suspended between cultures, as well as between a past and a future, musing on the exact causes of his detention and thinking what he might do after being released. He decides to return to Vanuatu to study the culture of his origin (it is also the writer's decision; although he was born in New Caledonia in a family originating from Vanuatu, he returns there after the archipelago's independence).
Today, Vanuatu’s literature remains small in volume but rich in diversity. Poetry continues to be a powerful form of expression, with poets like Selina Tusitala Marsh and emerging Ni-Vanuatu voices using performance poetry to engage with themes of climate change, gender, cultural survival, and the lasting effects of colonization. Oral storytelling also remains central, influencing modern literature and shaping the way Ni-Vanuatu writers engage with the written word.
Another major force in Vanuatu’s literary scene is bilingual and multilingual writing. With Bislama, English, and French as the country’s official languages, many writers navigate between them, creating a dynamic literary landscape that reflects Vanuatu’s complex cultural and linguistic heritage. There is also a growing movement to incorporate indigenous languages into literature, ensuring that local knowledge is preserved and celebrated. The rise of spoken-word poetry, digital storytelling, and community-based publishing projects is helping to expand the reach of Vanuatu’s literature, which is a means to address contemporary issues such as climate resilience, urbanization, and cultural revival. Vanuatu’s literature is still young, still defining itself, but it is unmistakably a literature of resistance, renewal, and deep cultural pride, carrying forward the voices of its ancestors while forging new paths for the future.
Long before the written word arrived on these islands, the Ni-Vanuatu people preserved their knowledge, history, and spiritual beliefs through oral storytelling, song, and dance. These stories were not just narratives; they were sacred texts, embedded in ceremonies, rituals, and the landscape itself. They spoke of creation, of spirits and ancestors, of the wisdom of chiefs, and of the close relationship between humans and nature. Totems, sand drawings, and carvings also played a role in transmitting meaning, serving as visual storytelling methods that carried cultural memory across generations.
With the arrival of European missionaries and colonial powers—first the British and French, who ruled Vanuatu as the New Hebrides—came the written word. Missionaries translated the Bible into local languages, and literacy was introduced as part of their religious mission. Yet, for decades, writing remained largely confined to Christian texts, colonial reports, and administrative documents, and it did not yet reflect the voice of the Ni-Vanuatu people.
Under the joint British-French colonial administration, local culture was often suppressed. The people of Vanuatu were taught the literature of Europe but not their own stories. However, in the background, the oral tradition persisted, resisting the erasure of indigenous knowledge. The struggle for independence in the 1970s and 1980s sparked a cultural and literary awakening. Yet early written literature supposedly dates back to the 1960s as part of a larger Pacific Islander movement, concentrated at the University of South Pacific created in Fiji. The movement mostly led to the creation of short forms of expression, such as poems and tales. As Vanuatu prepared to become a sovereign nation in 1980, Ni-Vanuatu writers and intellectuals sought to reclaim their identity, language, and storytelling traditions in a new, written form. Literature became a tool of decolonization, a way to affirm the uniqueness of Vanuatu’s people and their right to tell their own history.
One of the key figures in this movement was Grace Mera Molisa (1946-2002), a poet, activist, and political leader whose works fiercely denounced colonial oppression and gender inequality. One of the problems of the postcolonial society is the status of women, their economic rights, domestic violence, and all the rest. No wonder her poetry collection Black Stone (1983) was groundbreaking—not only as one of the first major literary works by a Ni-Vanuatu writer but also as a powerful expression of postcolonial resistance and feminist consciousness, audible on an international scale, with special visibility in Australia. Molisa’s poems, written both in Bislama and in English, were direct, urgent, and uncompromising, setting the stage for future writers to use literature as a form of activism.
Around the same time, Marcel Melthérorong, a writer of mixed Ni-Vanuatu and French heritage, began exploring themes of identity, migration, and cultural hybridity. His Tôghàn (2007) is considered the first Vanuatuan novel, even if it has only 80 pages. It delves into the experience of a young Ni-Vanuatu man navigating between different worlds—traditional village life, urban modernity, and the lingering presence of colonial influence. The title Tôghàn is also the name of its hero. In Camp Est in Nouméa (New Caledonia), a sort of regional prison or re-education camp, he has an opportunity to meet a lot of people belonging to diverse ethnic groups. So to speak, he is suspended between cultures, as well as between a past and a future, musing on the exact causes of his detention and thinking what he might do after being released. He decides to return to Vanuatu to study the culture of his origin (it is also the writer's decision; although he was born in New Caledonia in a family originating from Vanuatu, he returns there after the archipelago's independence).
Today, Vanuatu’s literature remains small in volume but rich in diversity. Poetry continues to be a powerful form of expression, with poets like Selina Tusitala Marsh and emerging Ni-Vanuatu voices using performance poetry to engage with themes of climate change, gender, cultural survival, and the lasting effects of colonization. Oral storytelling also remains central, influencing modern literature and shaping the way Ni-Vanuatu writers engage with the written word.
Another major force in Vanuatu’s literary scene is bilingual and multilingual writing. With Bislama, English, and French as the country’s official languages, many writers navigate between them, creating a dynamic literary landscape that reflects Vanuatu’s complex cultural and linguistic heritage. There is also a growing movement to incorporate indigenous languages into literature, ensuring that local knowledge is preserved and celebrated. The rise of spoken-word poetry, digital storytelling, and community-based publishing projects is helping to expand the reach of Vanuatu’s literature, which is a means to address contemporary issues such as climate resilience, urbanization, and cultural revival. Vanuatu’s literature is still young, still defining itself, but it is unmistakably a literature of resistance, renewal, and deep cultural pride, carrying forward the voices of its ancestors while forging new paths for the future.
I have readJ.M.G. Le Clézio, Raga. Approche du continent invisible (2006)
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the island of many names
Raga is classified as a diary of a travel to Île de Pentecôte, on of the 83 islands forming the volcanic archipelago of Vanuatu. The book's initial sections present, so to speak, two overlapping spheres of exploration, one of the Western navigation that started with the Portuguese and the Spanish, and on the other hand, the much greater, even if lesser known adventure of the Melanesian people travelling in search of new lands of abundance, and without wars.
The encounter with the present-day Vanuatu is epitomized in the "beaten woman" who brought out of her oppressive marriage only to revive the tradition of weaving mats made from pandan (screw palm) and valorising them (thus valorising the women's work) in the local economy.
J.M.G. Le Clézio, Raga : approche du continent invisible, Paris, Seuil, 2006.
Kraków, 2.08. 2021.
The encounter with the present-day Vanuatu is epitomized in the "beaten woman" who brought out of her oppressive marriage only to revive the tradition of weaving mats made from pandan (screw palm) and valorising them (thus valorising the women's work) in the local economy.
J.M.G. Le Clézio, Raga : approche du continent invisible, Paris, Seuil, 2006.
Kraków, 2.08. 2021.
