The Book of Puka-Puka

In 1924, Robert Frisbie arrived on the island of Puka-Puka, one of the most remote in the South Pacific, to run a trading post. Within months he had learned the language and become absorbed into the ways of its ancient, indigenous community - fishing, picnicking, swimming, sleeping and falling in love. Fortunately for us he also had a pitch-perfect ear for stories. Before the book is done, we feel the power of the surf and the coral reefs, hear death chants and witness thirty torch-lit canoes setting out to net flying fish at night. Frisbie's interest in and love for the culture of this island and its inhabitants are infectious.

Robert Dean Frisbie was a writer whose life and work came to be embedded in the South Pacific. Born in Ohio in 1896, his health was crippled by fighting in the First World War, and a doctor informed him that another North American winter would be his last. In 1920 he sailed for the South Pacific, ending up four years later on the island of Puka-Puka. Frisbie died in the Cook Islands in 1948, leaving five children.