Meleika Gesa

Guest writer

Meleika Gesa-Fatafehi is a storyteller, poet and literature and film critic whose ancestors hail from Mer (Murray) Island, from the Zagareb and Dauareb tribes (to name a few), and Fahefa, Tonga. She loves talking about all things nerdy, rapping and creating, as well as decolonising spaces online and in real life.

(L-R) David, John, Peter, Luke, Bill, Stephen, Jim Kolo and Mano. January 06, 1968. (Photo by John Raymond Elliott/Fairfax Media via Getty Images).

The real Tongan boys of ‘Ata were not the real Lord of the Flies

An excerpt in The Guardian in May claimed to have discovered the story of the "real Lord of the Flies". One Tongan writer believed it erased the voices of the boys themselves and the Tongan values and knowledge systems that prepared them for survival.

By Meleika Gesa | 8th January, 2021

(L-R) David, John, Peter, Luke, Bill, Stephen, Jim Kolo and Mano. January 06, 1968. (Photo by John Raymond Elliott/Fairfax Media via Getty Images).

The real Tongan boys of ‘Ata were not the real Lord of the Flies

An excerpt in The Guardian claimed to have discovered the story of the "real Lord of the Flies". It erased the voices of the boys themselves and the Tongan values and knowledge systems that prepared them for survival.

By Meleika Gesa | 17th May, 2020