This week Text Journal in Melbourne published my translation of a New Caledonian short story, “The Vanilla and the Writer”, which is freely available here, on page 6: https://textjournal.scholasticahq.com/article/137249-text-prose-and-poetry-april-2025
The editors were looking for stories about writing, and I had translated one which was exactly that. It’s about a teenage boy from the Isle of Pines who wants to be a writer but doesn’t quite know how to go about it. While it’s a story for older children or young adults, it nonetheless inspired me to open my eyes and really look long at things and people, and then try and write what I’d seen.
The author, Jacqueline Exbroyat (1931 – 2013), was one of the first women doctors in New Caledonia. I found her little story in an anthology of writing by Pacific authors, Sillages d’Océanie 2014, where my own work, some translated poems by Claudine Jacques, had also been published. I’m very thankful to the family of Jacqueline Exbroyat for their permission to publish my translation.
The header image showing the broad leaves and long pods of a vanilla vine is courtesy of Needpix.com.
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