Where We Once Belonged

by Sia Figiel

236 pages Viking (1998) English 067087938X 978-0670879380 Shipping 1.1 pounds

Genres: Fiction, Poetry, Coming Of Age, Young Adult, Novels, Literary Fiction, Indigenous

248 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Sia Figiel was born in 1967. Author of novels, plays, and poetry, she has traveled extensively in Europe and the Pacific Islands, and has had residencies at the University of Technology in Sydney, the East-West Center in Hawaii, the Pacific Writing Forum at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji, and Logoipulotu College in Savaii. She is also known as a performance poet and has appeared at several international literary festivals. Her first novel, where we once belonged, won the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize Best First Book for the Southeast Asia/South Pacic region. She lives in Samoa.

Reviews

[Sia Timo · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book when I visited Tutuila in September of 2001. My father was dying in the ICU of LBJ medical center. I had flown in from San Diego to Honolulu to Tutuila the night before. I'd had litlle sleep and after just a few hours at my dad's bedside, was in dire need of a mental break. So I drove to the one bookstore I knew to search for something to distract my tired brain. I found this book and started reading. I couldn't put it down. I had to keep checking the front to make sure that author was in fact a Samoan. To say I was captivated was an understatement. The fictional character mirrored so much of my experience growing up that I found myself crying, angry and an emotional wreck by the time I was finished. I went to check on my dad at the hospital and found that he had requested to be discharged so he could be home with me. So we took him home. I later decided to call my old high school because I read that Sia at that point was teaching at my old high school of all places. I chanced it bc I so wanted this woman to autograph my book before I left for the mainland again. A young voice answered and said, "Just a moment," because I had asked if may speak to Sia Figel. For a second I thought, I'd lost all my freaking marbles! What Now? Sia answered stating her name. And I went into a very frantic spiel of how I'd read her book and how my name was Sia too! And that her book made me cry because it was my own story mirrored, and that we were the same age except she grew up in Upolu whereas I did in tutuila. And I humbly begged her if she could autograph my book because I'd be leaving in a few days. Things got quiet. So I steeled myself for the news. She then went into sort of a self talk with what I thought was an adorable New Zealand accent. "These kinds of things usually happen only in book signings". I had sort of stopped listening because everything had been way too easy so far so this had to be the end of this silliness. And then I thought I heard her ask if I could meet her Barneys? Luckily I remembered Barneys bc I had had lunch there with some old high school mates. I met Sia Figel that night. I asked her how we'd figure out who each other was and she laughed and said she was 6 feet tall and had short kinky hair and shouldnt be hard to miss. She was right. Sia was bigger than life & I felt like I'd known her all my life. Every Samoan should read "Where we once belonged." Like Alice Walker experienced when she wrote 'The Color Purple.' It didnt portray the men of her culture in the brightest of lights. Why would anyone like being portrayed as brutal and mysogynistic? Similar dismissals such as it being a 'girlie read' is neither unusual nor surprising. Its a favorite tool thats been used against women of all cultures for ages. Individualism is often depicted as akin to poison to our culture's intact ferocity to preserve old traditions and having the family unit being the number one entity to worship. In this world of free thinkers, Young Samoan intellectuals are struggling to find a voice. They are not the enemy. They are the future.

[April · Rating 5 out of 5]

Haunting. Magical. Rich.

I've been searching for literature about Polynesia written by a Polynesian, and unsurprisingly to me, in this part of the world (the States), that defines us by Tiki and Margaret fucking Mead, it has been nearly impossible to find. This was a gorgeously written coming of age story about a girl named Alofa. Through her and her 'aiga, we see the sometimes beautiful, sometimes brutal and complicated Samoa, and soak into its mythology and culture as Alofa learns more about the type of person she wants to be and type of 'we' she wants to be part of.

Figiel's characters are so real to me. As an afakasi Tongan, I see my own kāinga and my own frustrated thoughts about colonialism and identity in these pages.

'Go back to where you came from, you fucking ghosts! Gauguin is dead! There is no paradise.!'

Apia children laughed when they heard her speak English to papalagis.

Palagis were confused when they heard such words--most of them shocked, shocked that someone recognized them doing what they did: Peeping-Tomming for a past, an illusion long dead, long buried in museums of their own making. They were ashamed and looking down, buying ulapule or coconut earrings from an old woman out of guilt.

Figiel's points the finger at the cultural destruction caused by Christian missionaries through Alofa's "western educated" aunt Siniva, but also shows how Siniva's emotional and spiritual disconnection from Christianity has also separated her from her family. In her attempts to gain back something lost, something precolonial, she ends up losing everything.

They thought her a fool and cut the umbilicus that connected her to her mother, Malaefou

Indeed, as the story progresses, Malaefou is no longer the town in which they all live. It becomes an entity, it's own character, with all the power of love and pain that any mother has over her children. Similarly, the goings-on in Alofa's life begin to mix and swirl more into the stories which are the glue of the community. At some points we cannot separate 'real life' from the mythology anymore.

Not only was this beautifully written, and a pleasure to read as a girls coming of age, it was so so gratifying to me to be able to read something without the filter of palangi mouthpiece. Like the great writer Adichie said, "Power is the ability not just to tell the story of another person, but to make it the definitive story of that person."

Thank you Figiel for writing this story so we all can have something other then their story of us ❤

(For funsies go read all the 1 star reviews and note that they are all white ladies. My favorite is the one that was mad because it wasn't written with her in mind.)

[Simon Percival · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book because it's rare to find books set in the Pacific Islands, and it is also rare to find many books written by people from the Pacific Islands. In the case of this book, we get a short coming of age story centred on a young girl growing up in a poor fale, with little education, very little money, and little contact with, or knowledge, of the outside world. Something that I found particularly interesting about the book, is how it really takes this lack of knowledge from the main character's point of view, and gives us lots of insight into it. We see them try to piece together the puzzle that is the greater world, with only half of the pieces. It's because of this naivety, and the slight epiphanies that begin to occur, that make the main character really interesting and real to me. You can feel the frustration on their part as knowledge is withheld from them.
Something else that's quite interesting and unique about the book is its storytelling techniques. For one thing, its presented in a sort of episodic format, with no attention paid to its chronological order, but what makes it more interesting are the constant mythological and folklore stories, and the imagery derived from said stories, that are spread throughout.

Overall, I thought it to be a short, interesting read. It gives an idea of what its like to grow up in such a place, and it really, really feels accurate , even if the main character's point of view can leave you questioning what actually happens near the end.

[Carmen · Rating 5 out of 5]

As I thought these thoughts the Tuli of Tomorrow flew high up in the sky, a fue tattoed on her wings, a to'oto'o tattoed on her peak. The Tuli called to me, her voice music to my feet, and I began walking...walking-walking...away from Siniva's grave...walking now towards Malaefou, towards the new gathering place where 'we' once belonged.

Beautiful!

[Clay Davis · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a jumbled mess, the disjointed writing style makes for very bad reading. Learned about the author, who is now charged with murder, from the news.

[P.C. Parn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I give Where We Once Belonged 4 stars thanks in part to having some context with which to read this book. About a teenaged girl growing up in Samoa, the book may seem a bit disjointed to Western readers (a category into which I fall). That said, I've spent a lot of time in Hawaii, a place where Polynesian culture is very much alive. The Hawaiian and Samoan languages are very similar, as both are Polynesian languages. It wasn't a stretch for me to figure out which letters were different, i.e. Alofa and Aloha are the same things, just in Samoan an F is used wherein Hawaiian a H would be used. Also, the glossary in the back was super helpful.

What's unique, and a bit challenging, about Where We Once Belonged is that it is a novel, which is a Western invention, written by a Samoan voice using Samoan culture, which is very much not Western. As a result, the novel can seem at times, incoherent and off, as many non-Western novels can appear to Western audiences.

That said, Figiel does a great job at capturing what it's like to be a teenaged girl growing up in a culture that is struggling to keep its traditional values while claiming some place in the modern world. Figiel dives into just what it means to be female and marginalized in a culture that is rapidly becoming 'antiquated' by 'modern' standards. Where is her place as a traditional Samoan woman and as a modern educated woman? Can she be both?

While I can only relate superficially to some of the issues Figiel speaks of (once I was a teenaged girl) I found Figiel's writing powerful enough to truly impress upon me the issues that she faced as a young woman. I greatly enjoyed this book, but I knew it would not read in a standard linear fashion, so I was not caught off balance when it didn't.

This book is enlightening and worth the read, just go in knowing that it's told through a unique culture's voice. Don't fight it, just let the melody wash over you.

[Karin · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Fiction in South East Asia and Pacific (1997) so I was excited about reading my first Samoan novel written by a Samoan woma. There is no doubt this novel deserves the pr ize, but it is dark and violent--on the back cover the word brutal is used for the story--and so not something I enjoyed. It is a coming of age story of Alofa who starts at 13 but much of this book is when she is close to 17, and yet some of it is from many different times. Some of it is told in poetry, although it is a novel. Some of it is told in the traditional Samoan story telling style which to a Pacific Northwest born and raised person is difficult to follow at times, not to mention that the little glossary was woefully inadequate, even though there were times when translation was given.

Alofa (which means love) lives in a part of Samoan culture (not sure if this prevailed all over Samoa) where beating one's wife and children seems to have been quite acceptable, among other violence.

I can't give lower than one star, but really, Sia Figiel writes very well, so that star is full of praise for her ability to write, I just did not like it.

[Esther Hong · Rating 3 out of 5]

Captivating, rich & unapologetic.

[Nicole (Nerdish.Maddog) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a coming of age memoir written by a Samoan woman about Alofa, a teenager in her transformative years in the village of Malaefou. The narrative is completely unique and its refreshing to see an original voice and style in the literary world. The book is non-linear and infused with the Samoan language which can be off putting to some readers. I was fine with allowing myself to just read the words without meaning because maybe some things are meant to not be understood by palagi (we have never had to live it so how could we fully understand anyways). There is a small translation section in the back for important words but she does a great job of telling the story that I eventually stopped looking and just enjoyed a look into a different style of storytelling. There are a few breaks in the narrative that tell stories of the Gods before Jesus came to the island. It's through these stories that I found the poetic nature of the novel to be reflection of traditional story telling in Samoa. Its sad to see how colonization has hurt these traditions. We cant change history but we can learn from and about our mistakes.

[Encarni Reading The World Forever · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book dealing with cultural identity and the role of women within this cultural background. I’ve enjoyed learning a bit about Samoan mythology.

[Philip · Rating 3 out of 5]

Where We Once Belonged by Sia Figiel is a novel set in Samoa, a novel that won the Commonwealth Writers Prize. At one level it is a simple story of one girl’s journey through childhood and adolescence.

Alofa tells us about her school life, her church, her favourite television programmes, and her family. She tells us of local practices, customs and mores. She describes what she eats and how it is cooked. She details her relationships with her friends, parents and teachers. And in this way she builds for us a picture and sensation of growing up in Samoa.

Alofa is quite a late developer. Long after her friends have succumbed to the moon sickness, she has not begun to menstruate. It troubles her. She worries that she is not like other people, that she might be destined for a life that is different from theirs. But she discovers what all adolescents discover, and delights in telling the minute detail of every encounter.

There are older men, younger men, and girls, mothers and boys. She has her share of experiences and learns that sometimes people are not what they seem. Through Where We Once Belonged the reader thus experiences Samoan life, how it once was, and how it is changing. It is not a rich life, for sure, but the poverty, both material and personal, never grinds down either the community or the individual. Like everywhere else in human existence, some can cope with apparent ease, whilst others find the process of life more taxing.

The true beauty of Sia Figiel's novel, however, is that it provides a foil to external, Western interpretations of Samoan life. Mention of this contrast with ´official´ views of the culture come late in the book, because the perspective is consistently that of the young girl narrator. In some ways this is unfortunate, since the book has real direction once this is understood. Until then, a casual reader may not develop this informative and rewarding overview. An uncommitted reader might also find the book a difficult read.

There is extensive use of Samoan words, whole sentences in places. Though there is a glossary, it is far from complete. There is a temptation not to refer to it and thus to gloss over some of the detail, and it is in this detail that the book’s real richness lies. Eventually, it is a rewarding read, in its particularistic, individual way.

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Where We Once Belonged adapts the participative Samoan storytelling form of su'ifefiloi to tell the story of Alofa Filiga, an adolescent girl navigating Samoan society and the treacherous waters of near-adulthood. Su'ifefiloi means a woven garland of flowers. As a narrative technique, it refers to the stringing together of individual stories or episodes, each separate and unrelated like flower blossoms, but coming together to create a cohesive whole. In Where We Once Belonged, unlike in a traditional bildungsroman with its characteristic single transformative episode, anecdotes and poetry follow one another without regard to order or continuity. The story emerges slowly, and there are a multitude of turning points. This piecemeal style is particularly well-suited to a portrayal of adolescence, teetering on the edge of adulthood, the battery of experience juxtaposed with a sustained innocence, the difficulties of becoming an adult, and more specifically of becoming a woman, revealed slowly and partially.

This is an excerpt from a longer review on my blog, Around the World in 2000 Books.

[Sanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Last year, I read Albert Wendt's Leaves of the Banyan Tree and I cannot help but feel like these two books belong together. Where Wendt's book focusses on the trials and tribulations of several generations of men through much of the 20th century, Figiel's book takes off where Wendt's chronicle stops: both in terms of time (late 20th century), and by putting the female experience in a small Samoan community center stage.

I love Figiel's prose and way of storytelling and I'll definitely try to find more of her work!

[Josie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ok, this book totally lost me.
Not sure if it was the Samoan language creaping into the English text, or whether it was down to it just not making sense with its mythical/fantasy excerpt, which then swifty swung into chapters focusing on abused and ratially discriminated against women.
I found the whole thing confusing. Way way too many characters that made no impact on me enough to be able to tell you who they were, how they are linked, or why they featured in the story.


I'm glad to have experienced a book writen by a Samoan writer. I'm not sure I'll try another though!

[Joy Gerbode · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book might have been better than I'll rate it ... by this time in my semester I am tired of books about abused women, ratially discriminated against women, etc. and longing for some good old-fashined fairy tales. So I didn't really enjoy this book. Actually, I was somewhat offended by the things that she chose to share, and I've read some pretty seemy books lately. This one just seemed to really rub me the wrong way.

[Emelihter Kihleng · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite novel. Love it, love it, love it.

[Arna · Rating 1 out of 5]

I could not love this, although I tried. One star may be a bit harsh, but I can't get to OK.

[Stacy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I came into this book expecting violence, based on anonymous review, and I would say that violence factors heavily into this book. A lot of emotion factors heavily into this book: sadness, pleasure, pain. We follow a young girl as she grows up in Western Samoa, interacting with friends, family, boys, gods. Through the bits and pieces we read, the mosaic of a world comes to life.

I'm not sure if I got this correct, but throughout the novel, the main character, Alofa, is always part of a group, part of a "we" - traveling with friends, spending time with family (however fraught), always challenged by her groups to do what they want. As the book moves on to its conclusion, something in Alofa changes. I'm not sure if it's her continuing education, being kicked out to live with her aunt (does this actually happen?), or her self-defense mechanisms finally taking the forefront, but she begins to assert her will on the world by choosing to be an "I." I was a little sad to see that change happen at the end of the book with no more updates for her, but it still left a lingering wistfulness.

One caveat that lessened my enjoyment of the book was that there were many small phrases and words that were not found in the glossary - I'm sure that was an intentional choice of the author. One has to think of who this book might be written for, and sometimes the translation of a phrase doesn't do it justice. Moreover, I think the author may have left a lot untranslated to pique others' curiosity of the language (I looked up a YouTube video to see how some of the words were pronounced), or to parallel the main character's little knowledge of English (we also feel confused and lost at times, if we do not speak the language).

While this is one story, and one story does not define an entire culture, I appreciate how the author's immersive storytelling illuminated a part of Samoa for me.

[Agnieszka Dziakowska · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sia Figiel’s stories place women in a first place as the ones experiencing injustice and finding their ways to cope with pain and isolation individually. She illustrates the hardship of belonging, trauma, physical and emotional violation, and gender inequalities. The strength of the protagonists underlines the necessity of speaking out the truths and sharing stories from one’s own perspective listening to one’s own heart, feelings, and body. In her novels and collections of poems, through eyes of children and teenagers, this Samoan author elaborates on the “strict social taboos around the expression of female sexuality” (Ramsay 4), severe consequences of disobedience, constant perils of sexual harassment and physical threats, the necessity of vigilance, and resilience.
Where We Once Belonged, awarded with Commonwealth’s Writer Prize, constantly raises much debate among Samoan society by touching multiple important subjects such as violence and rape. The perspective of Alofa, which means “love”, at times relates to the glamourised concept of eroticised love common in western imaginary of South Pacific, in order to subsequently illustrate how uncompromisingly different is the actual reality (Benson & Conolly).
The composition of Sia Figiel’s novels attempts to unveil the feelings and emotional insight into prepubescent and teenage girls confronting sexual abuse in their environment and aloofness in adults’ world. Violence against children and women is a prevalent problem in Samoa where authors are on spotlight as they elevate their concern regarding subjects deemed by the society as private (Figiel qtd. in Cowling 34). Additionally, there is a popular belief that violence is acceptable to certain extent if does not bring any serious complications (Boodoosingh et al 39). Where We Once Belongs illustrates how aggression and double standards for women are the part of community’s everyday life. On the first pages of the book we learn that children are often the persons of interest for local predators: “Boys paid her money just to smell her panties, grown men paid her money, too, just to smell her panties and bra” (12).
Christian values and purity are always one first place as children are expected to be humble, quiet, and obedient. Any attempt to break the rules of moral purity are severely punished with physical brutality in order to protect the family’s honour and reputation. Girls are in constant fear of not only sexual assault itself but as well of the stigma and punishment that might come after. In a strongly structured and patriarchal community they stand a small chance of having the opportunity to tell their story and have the right to defend it.
Furthermore, Sia Figiel’s compositions accentuate the role of storytelling when dealing with post trauma. Sharing one’s story might bring a relief however sometimes her protagonists are not able to find out if speaking out the truths would release them from pain.

Boodoosingh, Ramona, et al. “Research Briefing: Violence against Women in Samoa.” Women’s Studies Journal, vol. 32, no. 1-2, 2018, pp. 33-56.
Cowling, Wendy E. “Island Lives: The Writing of Sia Figiel (Samoa) and Celestine Hitiura Vaite (Tahiti).” Junctures: The Journal for Thematic Dialogue, vol. 6, no. 12, 2009, pp. 29-41.
Figiel, Sia. Where We Once Belonged. Kaya Press, 1999.
Ramsay, Raylene. “Indigenous Women Writers in The Pacific: Déwé Gorodé, Sia Figiel, Patricia Grace: Writing Violence as Counter Violence and The Role of Local Context.” Postcolonial Text, vol. 7, no. 1, 2012, pp. 2-18.
Teaiwa, Teresia K. "Figiel, Sia (1967-).” Encyclopedia of Post-Colonial Literatures in English, edited by Eugene Benson, and L. W. Conolly, Routledge, 2nd edition, 2005. 

[Ava (jeepneylit) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sia Figiel’s Where We Once Belonged is an unflinchingly honest, poetic, sometimes painful, often humorous coming-of-age story set in 1970s Samoa. Alofa Filiga is a typical teenager. Together with her friends Lili and Moa, she teases the local boys, misbehaves at school, and worships Charlie’s Angels. As young Alofa navigates the mores and restrictions of village life, she begins to come to terms with her own changing identity and the price she must pay for it.

The rich form of storytelling reminds me of my own barangay: girls sitting around gossiping, villagers chattering about local business (“a place where ‘we’ means ‘I’ and ‘I’ simply doesn’t exist”), neighbors bragging about relatives living abroad, and old folks telling the young how to behave (“real love is when children are beaten up bad by their parents”). The extensive use of the Samoan language is also refreshing. While the meaning of most Samoan words is listed in the glossary, several are not. Despite this limitation, I am able to follow and understand the nuances.

Alofa’s personal story entwines with the broader theme of circular migration – Pacific Islanders moving away and back home again. In this novel, we see villagers departing from Samoa for the promised land of New Zealand, only to return sooner or later in varying degrees of disenchantment or shame. In this novel, Figiel also talks about the violence of internalized colonialism and the ways that this violence leaves a mark. If you are looking for a brave book that speaks of such difficult matters, reflecting crucial issues of survival relevant to indigenous peoples of any culture, I highly recommend this one.

[Octavia Cade · Rating 3 out of 5]

The thirteen year old protagonist of this coming-of-age story, Alofa, leads an interesting life... or so it seems to me, safely removed from it. In one sense it's not at all extraordinary, as she's very much behaving as all the other girls of her community do and so she's a typical example, presumably, of what it's like for a girl to have a traditional Samoan upbringing. From an outside perspective, though, Alofa's ordinary life is very different. Or at least it's very different to me, who wasn't raised within a society as religious as this one, or with the same cultural expectations. I can't honestly say that I'm sorry. Alofa's a good kid, and the girls around her are good kids, but they still get beaten, frequently and severely, by the adults around them, in order to ensure that the girls conform to what's expected of them. That is, to be obedient and to be chaste. There's more to "good" behaviour than that, of course, but these are the qualities that seem to be brought up most, and as with many coming-of-age stories, this one explores sexuality. It's a difficult subject for Alofa, as she's meant to be wholly ignorant on the subject, but ignorance is no defense, and experimenting with a local boy leads to trouble.

All of which makes this book sound doom-and-teenage-angst, but it isn't really. There's plenty of happy moments, and the relationship between Alofa and her two best friends is well-drawn and appealing. Almost more interesting is the somewhat meandering structure, as Figiel builds up context and community around Alofa. I would have preferred, I think, a more sustained focus on that very sympathetic protagonist, but I still enjoyed the wandering.

[Justin Goldman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sia Figel's novel won the 1997 Best First Book award in the South East Asia/South Pacific Region of the Commonwealth Writers' Prize. This a remarkable coming-of-age story of a young lady named Alofa Filiga and it uses traditional Samoan storytelling to weave her teenage experiences as she navigates life in her village of Malaefou. The writing is fluid and she makes extensive use of Samoan language interspersed throughout the book. While many words are listed in the glossary, several are not and as a result I kept thinking I was missing out on nuances within her vivid descriptions. That should not take anything away from the remarkable work that Sia Figel has given to readers. Her acknowledgment at the end of the book was dated July 1996 which made it interesting to think about that just a year later the government amended the constitution to change the country's name from Western Samoa to Samoa. The story is illuminating with Samoa's interactions with foreign nations such as the central role of the Church in her adolescence and the presence of Peace Corps volunteers in local schools. Towards the end of the book she describes Siniva, Alofa's aunt, who returns to Samoa from New Zealand after receiving her bachelor's and master's degrees in history in 1972. She clashes with many people with her criticism of the effects of capitalism and missionaries who brought outside religion to Samoa at the expense of traditional beliefs. She ultimately becomes isolated and comments how "we kill ourselves slowly" with outside influences, but it is she who ultimately takes her own life.

[Jamie · Rating 4 out of 5]

To be completely honest, I did not give this book the amount of time and attention that is required to fully appreciate it. There are a good number of Samoan words and phrases that were not included in the glossary at the back of the book, and the names of characters are dropped in and out of the various chapters, without any explicit description of exactly who they are their relation to the narrator, a young girl named Alofa. These chapters are in themselves more like short stories that eventually form a complete narrative, but one that requires diligence and attention from the reader to comprehend.

One thing that was immediately clear was the resemblance in form, as well as to a lesser degree content, to House on Mango Street. Both are fragmented novels about young girls growing up in a poor neighbourhood in a non-Anglo-Western culture. One major difference is that this book takes place in Samoa, where there are still obvious signs of the influence of Anglo-Westerners.

I am adding this to my re-read list, with the intention of keeping a list of character names and my own translation dictionary. There is so much to be uncovered from reading it, that I am certain that even multiple re-reads would still continue to bear fruit.

[Leah Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Told from the perspective of Alofa, a teenage girl navigating the pressures of family, community, and tradition. Through Alofa’s eyes, readers get a look at what it means to grow up in a society where cultural expectations are deeply rooted; especially around gender roles and identity. The writing has a poetic rhythm to it, with moments of humor, heartbreak, and deep reflection. It's the kind of story that sticks with you because it doesn’t shy away from showing the real struggles young girls face in traditional societies.

This book is better suited for older students in grades 6–7 due to its more mature themes. I chose it for my library because it offers a rare and valuable glimpse into Samoan life. It is told by someone who truly understands the culture. It’s a powerful tool for representation, Pacific Islander students can see themselves and their stories in literature. While others learn about a region that often goes unseen in mainstream books. It’s especially meaningful for students exploring ideas of identity, gender, or the tension between tradition and modernity. This book offers encouragement of empathy, understanding, and the power of storytelling to connect across cultures.

[Rhoda · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars

This was my read the world selection for Samoa.

Told almost as a series of interconnecting short stories, this is the coming of age story of 13 year old Alofa and tells of the pain of adolescence and of a culture caught between the past and the future.

At this point I feel I need to point out that the day I started reading this book I quite accidentally learned that the author had been charged with murder just a month prior. Whether this changes your mind or not about reading this book is up to the individual.

In any case, I’m not here to talk this book up anyway, as I didn’t really like it. There are a lot of Samoan words peppered through this book, that have no explanation or context and there is no glossary. So I had no idea what a decent chunk of this book was saying and had no inclination to try to find out as there was just so much of it.

I also wondered if this was a true representation of life in Samoa as there was so much beating, hitting, slapping, punching and physical abuse between so many of the characters (of which there were many - it was hard to keep up). Really? Is Samoa really like this? ⭐️⭐️.5/5.

[Nicole Magolan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't know how to review this book.

I read it as part of a university paper and I would never have picked it up otherwise. It is hard-hitting with its content and follows a unique story structure, that breaks away from a traditional western novels linear logic. The novel is presented in chapters that are more like individual short stories. And in fact, the book reads way more clearly if you read it as a collection of short stories rather than a novel.
It's beautifully written, though at times the prose would flow into poetry, and got too metaphorical and fluffy for my tastes.
I definitely struggled through it, but as we discussed it in class, and I wrote an essay on the book, I discovered a new appreciation for it. The Samoa that it shows is raw, honest, and painful. There is real depth to be found in these pages.

[Dana Berglund · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very difficult book to rate and review. It wasn't written for me, and I had to work pretty hard to read it. It was written by a Samoan woman, about Samoan teenage girls, with liberal use of Samoan phrases, and a large cast of characters. It was challenging to hold the characters in my head, and to interpret the Samoan words and phrases without understanding the cultural context. (I only found when I got to the end that there was a glossary!) The storytelling was nonlinear, sometimes all in metaphor or poetry or Samoan songs, sometimes direct and blunt. Some descriptions were stunning, and some moments were painful. It was worth the effort, and I'd like to see more novels published from this part of the world. But for someone (like me) unfamiliar and ignorant, there was definitely effort involved to read it.

[Thomas Pugh · Rating 5 out of 5]

As you may expect from the title, 'Where We Once Belonged' is a look back at the Samoa of Sia Figiel's childhood. I strongly suspect there are many autobiographical elements. However, this is not Cider with Rosie. Figiel's retrospective is brutally honest, a Samoa that sits uncomfortably between tradition and westernisation, seemingly blending the worst aspects of both. There is no romanticising the traditional past, nor glamorising the globally-homogenised future, both are shown warts and all. It depicts a culture in flux which really aren't all cultures perpetually in such a state, every generation bemoans the erosion of their values.

The prose is dense and poetic, there are many Samoan words and phrases, sometimes even whole songs, personally I found these dragged me out of the narrative flow in places, but this is really the only real criticism I can level at the book.

[Solihin]

Recurring references to defecation/urination (usually paired with a lack of self-control) stood out to me, and it doesn’t feel like they can simply be waved off as mere symptoms of adolescence despite the bildungsroman-y directions of the novel. It is tied to the specific worldview espoused by Siniva (“For that is how it’s all gonna end, man – in shit man, in Darkness shit” 234), too, where the harmfulness of foreign foods/gastrocolonialism is foregrounded (235) though such recognition is not rewarded by the community. Janet Wilson’s description of a “state of disorientation behind the teenage voices” ("Deconstructing Home: ‘The Return’ in Pasifika Writing of Aotearoa New Zealand" 646) scratches the surface, but I am wondering whether notions of the abject could be helpfully applied here too.

[Fiona Murphy McCormack · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Where We Once Belonged, Sia Figiel evokes the Samoan tradition of suʻifefiloi, weaving words like a patchwork quilt of poetry. And she does this beautifully. Where We Once Belonged tells the story of Alofa, a young Samoan girl figuring out her identity within her community and further, her culture. Fiegiel explores the selfhood, religion/legend, history, colonization, language, love, sexism, parenthood and Westernization all poetically weaved together. So much of the novel is written in the Samoan language, that, similarly to Junot Diaz's Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, eventually I stopped trying to translate and just sank into the meanings of 'aiga, agaga, and the sea which surrounds it all.