Where We Once Belonged

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Alofa Filiga is thirteen years old. She lives with her family, the Filiga 'aiga, in the village of Malaefou, not far from Apia in Samoa. But Alofa isn't happy; coming of age in Samoa isn't as easy as those European anthropologists imagined it to be. Sia Figiel's first book uses the traditional Samoan storytelling form of su'ifefiloi to tell a modern tragicomedy of violence, the repression of women and the struggle for identity in Samoa. It is a forceful and honest adult work; the first of its kind to come from the Pacific. 

Winner of the prestigous Commonwealth Writers' Prize, Asia Pacific Region (1997).