A personal message from Célestine Hitiura Vaite

Books do change lives... they changed mine.
I did not grow up in a family of readers. (Tahitians are oral people - we do parau parau, talk talk.)

For my eighth birthday, my Godmother gave me my first book: Les Aventures D'Olivier Twist (all I wanted was a Barbie doll!) I read it to please her, but very soon I was hooked on words, and so more books followed. My next book was a gift from my mother, a professional cleaner with a vision. By eleven, I loved books with a passion. Reading was like being told a story except that I was in control. When I wanted to stop reading to go and play with my cousins, I just closed the book. Interrupting an auntie telling me a story was, let me tell you, out of the question.

Books also gave me an insight into another world. A world that was so very different to mine growing up in a fibro shack behind a petrol station in Faa'a - Tahiti. They took me into a world filled with people I'd never met, but people are people. Family life, dreams, matters of the heart are all universal themes. With each book I read, my vocabulary improved, and turned me into a very confident young girl in the French talking department.

Later on, as a migrant to Australia, books once again stepped in to help me confidently master a language that was not my own. And now I write in this language. I write about people who just happen to be from Tahiti. I'm honored to be published in more than ten countries in the world, but to make it to the best seller list in my birth land and have my books taught in schools and universities is my medal of pride.

My life mission is to blast the literacy rate in French Polynesia to the sky.

And I will!

Célestine Hitiura Vaite

What reviewers have said about Célestine's books

"What a gorgeous, evocative novel! It charmed me from beginning to end."
Sophie Kinsella, USA

"Warm and lyrical…Vaite has crafted an unforgettable heroine. Materena is passionate, clever, and never without words of wisdom or a bit of folklore to share with a troubled soul. By the end, the reader is left wanting more, more, more. The good news. There are two more installments to come."
Kirkus Review, USA

"Frangipani is a feast. It is busting with vitality and charm…It's worth spending a day with this woman just to listen to all her advice. She is not as simple as she looks."
Michael McGirr, Sydney Morning Herald, Australia

"One book bound to develop a life of its own is Frangipani by Celestine Hitiura Vaite. Set in Tahiti, it centres around the life of Materena, professional cleaner and problem solver. The book is so individual it's easy to see why it has the potential to capture a part of the market currently dominated by Alexander McCall Smith."
Kate Bradley, Book Club Associates, UK

Celestine Hitiura Vaite is a Tahitian author.