Sia Figiel

Photographed by Sean Schmidt, Seattle Washington.

Sia Figiel is a Samoan poet and novelist. Her novels have won praise for her use of traditional Samoan storytelling techniques, particularly in her first novel, where we once belonged (1996), which won a prestigious Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. Figiel’s other books include the novels The Girl in the Moon Circle (1996) and They Who Do Not Grieve (1999) and the prose poetry collection To a Young Artist in Contemplation (1998). A noted performance poet, she has recorded work with Teresia Teaiwa. Figiel’s poem “Songs of the fat brown woman” was included in Best New Zealand Poems 2003.

Figiel won the Polynesian Literary Competition for poetry in 1994 and has held numerous residencies in Europe and the South Pacific, including at the Institucio de les Lletres Catalanes in Barcelona, 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 lives in Samoa.