A True Child of Papua New Guinea: Memoir of a Life Between Two Worlds

By Maggie Wilson (McFarland)

Born in the Highlands of PNG, Maggie Wilson was the daughter of Melka Amp Jara and Patrick Leahy, the older brother of Michael and Daniel Leahy, who are considered among the first known Australian explorers to encounter people in the Highlands. Wilson, who died in 2009, started this book as an autobiography. James Cook University anthropologist Rosita Henry finished the manuscript and transformed it into a biographical ethnography on politics. The book provides a window into the changes brought upon PNG during the Australian administration and the first three decades after its independence in 1975.