Tahitian Author Célestine Vaite's Multilingual Writing: A Stitching of Languages and Experiences Across Oceania

Abstract

Tahitian author Célestine Vaite's novels Breadfruit (2000), Frangipani (2004), and Tiare in Bloom (2006) are set in 1970s Tahiti and written mainly in English, but they feature numerous occurrences of French, the colonial language of Mā‘ohi Nui (French Polynesia), Tahitian, the most spoken Indigenous language of the region, and Franitian, often referred to as Tahitian-French, a vernacular born from the cohabitation of French and Tahitian. The literary multilingualism of Vaite's books constitutes an active medium of diasporic and Indigenous identity assertion. Drawing from Pacific concepts of diaspora, Indigeneity, and postcolonialism, I explore how Vaite's languages reflect Pacific connections and actively sustain links between Pacific peoples, notably through colonial critiques and the thematic of movement. Mā‘ohi scholar Kareva Mateata-Allain uses the metaphor of the va'a (the Tahitian canoe) to posit literature as a tool that enables crossing the invisible, colonial barriers between Francophone and Anglophone regions and peoples (2005, 2008). Considering the isolating power of the French language in a region dominated by English, Mateata-Allain's approach underlines the wish of Mā‘ohi authors, including Vaite, to prioritize common Pacific experiences. Since Vaite's stitching of languages defies conceptions of linguistic zones in Oceania, I consider her use of English and of her three native languages from Mā‘ohi Nui as a strategy that decentralizes cultural experiences and identities and relocates them in a literary space that is uniquely hers.