Mister Pip
About the author:
• Born in 1955 in Lower Hutt, New Zealand.
• Was a journalist and consultant as well as a
writer.
• Won the Commonwealth Writers Prize
(Overall Winner, Best Book) and the Kiriyama
Prize for his novel, Mister Pip (2007).
• Covered the civil war that Mister Pip explores
as a journalist and therefore has first-hand
experience of the brutal events that occurred.
Culture and
Context
Where is Mister Pip set?
Appointed village officials were called 'hat men' (1938)
The Rev. J.F. Goldie. Original caption reads 'of such men
did Goldie make Christian gentlemen'.
(By courtesy Mitchell Library from Isles of Solomons,
Rev. Clarence Luxton, 1955)
The origins of the Bougainville conflict are
complex.
Put at its simplest, the ethnic differences
between the majority of Papua New
Guineans and the Bougainvilleans were
accentuated by the existence of a large,
profitable Australian-owned copper mine.
And, how is Bougainville today?
1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXlTTw9vbpg No-go zone
2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esCIiYc6uZk&feature=fvwrel
From 2009 – Part 1 of a short documentary called ‘Bougainville
– Re-opening old wounds’
3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2p1kWVQ5is&feature=rel
mfu From From 2009 – Part 2 of a short documentary called
‘Bougainville – Re-opening old wounds’
4. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpTr_SEbLPQ A modern
music video by an artist from Bougainville
History of Conflict
http://www.monitor.upeace.org/innerpg.cfm?id_article=748
Mismanagement of the relationship between
the operation of the Panguna Mine and the
local people was a fundamental cause of the
conflict in Bougainville. It directly created
great hostility between the people of
Bougainville and the Government of Papua
New Guinea.
Links to novel:
• Redskins Vs. Rebels
• “She was Grace and black like us.” p3
• “But after the minister died the authorities forgot about
the mission and the lawnmower rusted.” p3
• “According to us we are black as the night. The soldiers
looked like people leached up out of the red earth. That’s
why they were known as redskins. ” p7/8
• “Halfway to the horizon we could see a redskins’ gunboat.
It was like a grey sea mouse – it crawled along with its guns
aimed at us.” p17
• “But as the rebels and redskins went on butchering one
another, we had reason for hiding under the cover of
night.” p20
Can you find any other quotations from later in the novel
related to redskins and rebels, and the divide between the
people living on the island?
Francis Ona
“We were going to join him
[father], that’s what we were
going to do when Francis Ona and
his rebels declared war on the
copper mine and the company,
which in some way that I didn’t
understand at the time, brought
the redskin soldiers from Port
Moresby to our island.” p7
Power
The origins of the Bougainville
conflict are complex. Put at its
simplest, the ethnic differences
between the majority of Papua
New Guineans and the
Bougainvilleans were accentuated
by the existence of a large,
profitable Australian-owned
copper mine.
Various acts of violence successfully forced the
mine to close, and several years of conflict
ensued between what became known as the
Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA) and
the PNG defence force and its allies, the
Bougainville Resistance.
http://globalbrief.ca/blog/2009/05/13/the-bougainville-deal/
- Explanation of conflict in Bougainville.
http://www.janesoceania.com/bougainville_history2/index.htm
-History of Bougainville.