CAUGHT BY OTHER PEOPLE

PrologueThis is not so much a life story as a story of life, not only mine but the lives of other people or &lsquo,characters&rsquo, as we tracked together on our journey.When I was a student, I remember the Shakespearean critic, AC Bradley, now hardly mentioned by anyone, saying that characters in theatre are best understood by what they say, by what they do and by what other people say about them. , I believe this is especially true of a very theatrical place like Papua New Guinea but also true of life generally.So, while this is a memoir in the sense that it records some of what I have done and of course some of what I have said, as a character and also a writer in the broader sense, it includes other voices as well, what other people have to say. , It is impossible for me to track what I have done without including these voices, whether those of friends, family, colleagues or people I have met only casually, or not at all. , To me, that is what life is about.  ,Voice is especially important in Papua New Guinea, , it is a very multi-cultural place, not mono-cultural, another reason why I thought it appropriate to present multiple (and unedited) voices. , In addition to being partly an autobiography, then, this story is also like an anthropologist&rsquo,s private field notes, only rarely ever published, so it is full of not only experiences but imaginings, feelings, fantasies, dreams and nightmares.It is also like a history, not so much a history of myself &ndash, I have tried to steer clear of solipsism and searching self-examination &ndash, but a history of a love affair, not only with another human being but also with a country and its cultures. , I have also attempted by incorporating fictional angles of vision, mostly through free-verse and story-verse, to make it read like a novel and feel like a classical Greek drama. , To these ends, I have epigraphed the four sections (or &lsquo,episod