Sia Figiel NEWS
We are saddened to hear of the passing of Kaya Press author Sia Figiel (1967-2026). Figiel was the author of Where We Once Belonged, originally published in 1996, and won the the 1997 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book in the Southeast Asia/South Pacific region, and was considered the first major novel by a […]
From South Asian Kenyans struggling under the threat of expulsion, to Samoan girls on the cusp of womanhood, to a word-obsessed, multiracial Aussie piecing together his family’s past through fragments of letters and half-forgotten stories. The characters found in Kaya Press books are as provocative and nuanced as the writers who give them voice. Celebrate […]
they who do not grieve
Sia Figiel’s powerful, poetic skills weave together the voices of three generations of women from two families in Samoa and New Zealand. In this powerful sequel to her award-winning first novel, where we once belonged, Figiel invokes the mythic twin sisters who brought the tattoo custom to Samoa as guides to two young women as they navigate a society that threatens their self-determination as Samoans and as women.
praise
“Poetic, energetic, swirling with wild sweeps of feeling, this is powerful and uninhibited writing which unleashes a world dense with ghosts, taboos, deceptions and violence… Bracing and exhilarating.” — The Times, London
Sia Figiel NEWS
We are saddened to hear of the passing of Kaya Press author Sia Figiel (1967-2026). Figiel was the author of Where We Once Belonged, originally published in 1996, and won the the 1997 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book in the Southeast Asia/South Pacific region, and was considered the first major novel by a […]
From South Asian Kenyans struggling under the threat of expulsion, to Samoan girls on the cusp of womanhood, to a word-obsessed, multiracial Aussie piecing together his family’s past through fragments of letters and half-forgotten stories. The characters found in Kaya Press books are as provocative and nuanced as the writers who give them voice. Celebrate […]
