Sia Figiel

Who is Sia Figiel?

Sia Figiel is a contemporary Samoan novelist, poet, and painter.

Sia Figiel grew up amidst the traditional Samoan singing and poetry which heavily influenced her writing. Her formal schooling was conducted in Samoa and New Zealand where she also began a BA which was completed at Whitworth College. She has travelled in Europe and completed writers' residencies at the University of the South Pacific, Suva, and University of Technology, Sydney.

Sia Figiel's poetry has won the Polynesian Literary Competition in 1994 and Where We Once Belonged was awarded the 1997 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for fiction, South East Asia/South Pacific region. Her work has been translated into French, German, Catalan, Danish, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish and Portuguese.