The latest addition to my website is Marcel Melthérorong‘s Tôghàn. This the first Vanuatan novel ever published and the first on this website. It is very much an autobiographical novel. Tôghàn was born on New Caledonia to Vanuatan parents. We first meet him when he has been arrested (for burglary), not his first trouble with the police. While in prison awaiting trial and sentencing he starts to thinks about colonialism and its harmful effects but also where he has gone wrong. Under the influence of his older sister and, to a certain degree his father (a reformed drunk) and following a meeting with David, a fellow prisoner from Vanuatu who sings the praises of Vanuatu, he decides he will change and emigrate to Vanuatu, which he has never previously visited. It is a short but well written tale of a bad man reforming.