Plantation Life Plus A Little Sex

There have been innumerable books written about New Guinea in recent years and at least one written by a New Guinean. Nari Watkins’ Laua Avanapu breaks some new ground, however, by being published in New Guinea and by being written by someone white, over 21 and born in the country—the last still unusual in that country of galloping European transients.

The author was born in Rabaul between the wars, daughter of the late Mr C. I. H. Campbell and Mrs Campbell, well-known planters of Bougainville. Nari was named for a small island off Samarai, where her mother lived when she first went to the then Territory of Papua. Now married and Nari Watkins, the author lives on the original family estate of Raua, on Bougainville’s NE coast.

She also broke new ground by being on the spot in Kieta when Queen Elizabeth, the Duke of Edinburgh and Lord Louis Mountbatten were there earlier this year. She and her book were presented to the Royal party.

Although she calls her book a novel, this really is the story of her self growing up on a plantation in New Guinea before World War 11, of serving in one of the women’s services during it and returning to

her plantation life as a young married woman after it. It is therefore virtually biographical and as such was originally written. However, some where along the way, some literary friend said that she should “introduce some sex” into it to make it a going concern and to this extent she has scrambled the story of her two marriages.

Nari Watkins first husband was killed in a tragic accident when the plantation workboat which he was using exploded. She and her small son were saved. Some years later she remarried and she and her husband and family now divide their time between the plantation on Bougain ville and a cattle property in the Moss Vale district of NSW.

However, in the novel, the heroine Narianne has a slightly more adven turous love life, in accordance with the literary friend’s advice, but this really seems to be beside the point.

People who enjoy the book will do so for its account of early plantation life, the stories of the native people of the area, the plantation workers, their loyalties and human cussedness, their way of life in war and peace.— JT. (LAUA AVANAPU, by Nari Watkins.

Camwat Pty Ltd, Rabaul.)