Kovave: A Journal of New Guinea Literature (Vol. I, No. 1, November 1969)

Boroko, Papua New Guinea: Jacaranda Press, 1969. [Beier, Ulli]. Kovave: A Journal of New Guinea Literature (Vol. I, No. 1, November 1969). Boroko, Papua New Guinea: Jacaranda Press, 1969.

Ulli Beier (1922-2011) was a German scholar, writer and editor who taught at the University of Ibadan and was largely credited with developing literature, drama and poetry in Nigeria. He left Nigeria during the 1966 civil war and fostered budding writers at the University of Papua New Guinea. He established Kovave there in 1969; it was said to be not only the University's but the country's first literary journal.

This rare first issue provided notes on its contributors, which included students and instructors at the University as well as Don Laycock, a linguist at the Australian National University, and Marjorie Crocombe, a Cook Islander, author and instructor of Pacific history. There were traditional songs, poems, fiction, a book review, a play and fantastic illustrations by New Guinea artists.

9.5" x 7.25" pictorial thin card stapled wrappers. Pp. 63. Wraps lightly scuffed; a bit of scattered spotting; else near fine. # 47901.