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“No one • tv
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talked about the girls
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Devika Ponnambalam’s debut novel, which gives voice to the child-bride ‘muse’ of Paul Gauguin, took 17 years and a quest across Tahiti to write. Lucy Ribchester finds the result is a masterful feminist reclaiming of history and a celebration of Tahitian mythology
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hen Paul Gauguin departed Tahiti after his first visit in 1893, he took with him his iconic, lush and bold paintings of the island that went on to become some of the most expensive artworks ever sold. But he left one thing behind: his so-called ‘wife’. In reality, she was 11-year-old girl Teha’amana, whom Gauguin had ‘wed’ the afternoon he met, and used time and again as his muse in his work. It’s unclear how many Tahitian women and girls Gauguin painted, or which of them appear in each work, but what is certain is that his legacy would not exist were it not for them. And yet, like most female muses, their voices have been lost to history. Now, a powerful new novel by Edinburgh-based author Devika Ponnambalam is putting that loss to rights, giving a voice to Teha’amana and bringing the Tahiti Gauguin encountered to vivid, breathing life. ‘No one talked about the girls, you know,’ says Ponnambalam. ‘In the beginning,
I was curious, as a writer, as to what had happened to all the women. Later, once I was writing the book, and had become stronger and fiercer in what I wanted to say, I found I was just really angry that it’s never been explored or talked about.’ Ponnambalam admits her relationship with Gauguin’s work is complicated. Behind her on her wall hangs a copy of one of his paintings. She calls him a genius and says she would never want his art to be cancelled. ‘But I also think, well, where’s the other narrative? Seventeen years ago, it was this absence that led her to embark on a quest to fill those gaps. But the process was far from straightforward, and nor is the resulting book.
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June 2022 THE LIST 79
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