Book Review: Kisses in the Nederends, Epeli Hau'ofa

This book was one of the main texts for the class ‘Pacific Rim and the 21^st Century World’. It is an entertaining satirical novel written by the acclaimed writer Epeli Hau’ofa, a Pacific Islander commenting on many of the issues facing the people of the Pacific Islands today.

To explain the plot briefly, a man named Oilei Bomboki wakes up one day with a terrible pain in his backside, and he spends the majority of the rest of the novel searching for a cure to this pain. The tales of his unsuccessful treatments and the characters he meets along the way amuse the reader but also allow us to empathise with him.

When I read it for the first time, it was clear that it wasn’t just an amusing story, but had many underlying themes that Hau’ofa was exploring. Discussing the book in class helped clarify these thoughts, and these are some of the thoughts that came out of the discussion.

It could be said that Hau’ofa is simplistically, but humorously likening the world to a human body, with the Pacific Islands as the backside, which is where the pain is coming from, and is a place that no-one wants to think about, talk about – a taboo of sorts. There is anger and fury in the book, at best about how the world ignores the Pacific, worse still about how colonialism had such a terrible lasting effect on many islands and neo-colonialism and militarism still has a hold on the region. The journey Hau’ofa takes us on through Oilei’s pain culminates in a ridiculous scene where he undergoes an anus transplant, and the doctor attempts to give him a white woman’s anus, which his body dramatically rejects. This could be seen as the prescriptive attitude of the West when it comes to solving issues in the Pacific, and could be translated all over the developing world- trying to solve issues which can be associated with colonialism according to a narrow western worldview without taking into account the different needs and desires of other people.

A quote from the foreword written by Vilsoni Hereniko particularly stuck with me:

‘Given Hau’ofa’s reputation as a satirist and comic writer, as well as an intellectual and visionary, we stand to benefit by empathising with Oilei Bomboki as he sets out to search for a cure to his pain. Our pain.’

This book explored many issues we had previously discussed in the course, and particularly the use of humour to critique power relations and social hierarchy was a strong theme throughout the course that was present in ‘Kisses in the Nederends’. I would recommend the book wholeheartedly whether or not the reader has an interest or prior knowledge of the Pacific Islands and the issues they face in the 21^st century.