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Series Papua New Guinea -- History -- Fiction
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Something in the blood [short story collection] (1979)

This series contains drafts, notes, newspaper cuttings, and correspondence. Something in the blood was published by University of Queensland Press (UQP) in 1979. Consisting of fifteen (15) short stories set in Papua New Guinea before its Independence. The short story Drowning was first published in the New Guinea Quarterly, vol. 10, no. 3, 1975-76. Some stories contain short passages in Pidgin. The stories deal with the themes of local customs, attitudes, acts of aggression, missionaries, loneliness, and racism. Includes drafts, cuttings of reviews from journals and magazine, scripts of radio plays adapted from the stories, and related correspondence.

A straight young back [novel] (2000)

This series contains drafts, notes, photographs and research material. A straight young back is narrated in the first person by David Apps, a cadet government officer who arrives in the Territory of Papua and New Guinea in 1963. Apps works for Hal Franklin, a District Commissioner. As the country moves towards self-government and independence, Apps is slowly corrupted by the power of ruling. Based on true story of the assassination in August 1971 of Jack Emanuel, District Commissioner. Emanuel was murdered deep in the the forest on a Rabaul plantation. The working titles for the novel were 'The old magic touch' and the 'Walk novel'.

Dead birds [novel] (2007)

This series contains drafts, notes, research material, and correspondence. Dead birds, published by ABC Books in 2007, is set in the early days of exploration around Papua New Guinea. It is based on the 1877 journal of Italian naturalist, collector and explorer Luigi d'Albertis and his crew as they travel by boat up the Fly River in the steam launch 'Neva' collecting birds of paradise, ethnographic artifacts and undiscovered specimens. A New Guinean tribesman is killed by Albertis' crew and his head preserved in a specimen bottle. The story, narrated by the head in a jar, is a story of race relations. Included in this series are notes, research material, and drafts.