A Title Spoken in Fever

About this book

Samoa, November 1918. The influenza ship has come, and the old chief of Fagaloto is dying among the dying. With his last clear breath he lays his family's ancient fine mat across the knees of his eight-year-old granddaughter, Sina Ellery, a half-palagi girl, and speaks his chiefly title over her. The family decides he was raving. Forty-three years later Sina is a court interpreter in Auckland, a widow who has never taught her daughter a word of Samoan. Then a letter arrives from the cousin who took the title instead, and who heard everything. As Western Samoa counts down to independence, Sina goes home to claim what was given to her and finds that being chosen is not the same as belonging. She can prove her right, but only by destroying the name of the man who asked her to come home.