Last Name:

Hitiura Vaite

First Name:

Célestine

from:

Faa´a

Who is Célestine Hitiura Vaite ?

Tahitian novelist, Célestine Hitiura Vaite, has become an international publishing sensation. Her trilogy of Tahitian novels - Breadfruit, Frangipani and Tiare, about the Mahi and Tehana families, were the subject of heated international auctions in 2004. Since its publication in Australia to excellent reviews, the trilogy is now being published in more than 10 countries. International rights to Frangipani have sold to the US, UK, Canada, Spain, Italy, Sweden, Norway, Finland, the Netherlands, Brazil, France, Germany and French Polynesia. Célestine, 39, was born and raised in Tahiti. The daughter of a Tahitian mother and a French father, who went back to his country after military service, she grew up in her big extended family in Faa'a-Tahiti, where everyone was a relative or related somehow. Poverty reigned, breadfruit and frangipani trees grew by the hundreds, and women talked non-stop. It was a place where storytelling was part of the every day life and women overcame obstacles with gusto and humour.