Robert Dean Frisbie
| Robert Dean Frisbie | |
|---|---|
| Born |
April 17, 1896 Cleveland, United States |
| Died | November 19, 1948 (aged 52) Avatiu, Cook Islands |
| Nickname | 'Ropati' |
| Occupation | Novelist, travel writer, trading station operator |
| Nationality | American |
| Genre | travel literature |
| Partner | Ngatokorua (Died: January 14, 1939) |
| Children | Charles Mataa, Florence "Whiskey Johnny", William Hopkins "Hardpan Jake," Elaine Metua, Ngatokorua |
Robert Dean Frisbie (17 April 1896 - 19 November 1948) was an American writer of travel literature about Polynesia.
Robert Dean Frisbie was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on April 17, 1896, the son of Arthur Grazly Frisbie and Florence Benson. As a young man, he left his parental home to serve in the U.S. Army during World War I. After discharge from the military, doctors told him that his health was so bad that he would not survive another American winter. So, in 1920, he decided to explore the islands of the South Pacific Ocean.
He arrived at his first destination, Tahiti, in that year, settled down to lead a life as a plantation owner in Papeete, and began to write about his travels. He also established the South Seas News and Pictorial Syndicate and began sending stories back to the U.S. for publication. In later voyages through Polynesia (spanning his entire lifetime), he regularly visited the Cook Islands, Samoa and French Polynesia.
In writing down his observations of life in the Pacific, Frisbie followed the footsteps of other famous 19th century South Sea writers. One of his major influences was Robert Louis Stevenson. He was also well informed of the work of fellow travel writers in his time, with whom he kept in touch.
In Tahiti, Frisbie (dubbed: "Ropati," a phonetic approximation of "Robert" [en: Writer]) met Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall, well-known co-authors of the Mutiny on the Bounty series. This encouraged Frisbie to write his first complete narrative, which marked the starting point of his career. The Book of Puka Puka, published in 1929 by The Century Company, related the tale of his eternal search for solitude on the far-flung Northern Cook atoll of Pukapuka. Frisbie writes that life on Pukapuka enabled him to escape "the faintest echo from the noisy clamour of the civilised world."
On Pukapuka Frisbie met 16-year-old Ngatokorua (Also known as Inangaro which, when translated, means "Desire"). They were married in 1928 on Penrhyn, Northern Cook Islands. "Nga" became the mother of their five children: Charles, Florence, William, Elaine and Ngatokorua. In 1930 the family sailed back to Tahiti and Frisbie started working on his second novel, My Tahiti (Little Brown & Co., 1937) and worked on another book, A Child of Tahiti, which was never published.
...
Wikipedia