Titaua Peu

Titaua Peu (born 1975) is a Tahitian novelist. Her two French-language novels both explore themes of colonialism, violence and intergenerational trauma in Polynesian life. Her first novel, published in 2003, made her the youngest published Tahitian writer; her second received several notable awards and was published in English in the United States in 2022. The Times Literary Supplement has called her work "an essential starting point for those interested in Tahiti and indigenous writers from the contemporary Pacific". Her family moved to Tahiti where she graduated from the Lycée Paul-Gauguin in 1994.

Her first novel, Mutismes: E 'ore te vāvā, published in 2003, was about the impacts of French colonialism in Polynesia, including the effects of nuclear testing at Moruroa and ongoing domestic violence. It was dedicated to Tahitian independence leader Pouvanaa a Oopa.

At the time Peu was the youngest-ever published Tahitian writer, at age 28. and Peu has said she received threatening letters. However, Moetai Brotherson and others praised her work as a landmark for indigenous literature.

On the strength of Pina, Radio New Zealand called Peu "one of the principal French speaking writers of the Pacific".

The New York Times said that Pina is "a clamorous, at times unwieldy take on modern Tahiti, yet Peu's 'rough-hewn, oral, humane prose' (in the words of the translator, Jeffrey Zuckerman) rings fiercely true". The Woven Tale Press noted that Peu offers "a disturbing portrait of colonialism's lasting footprint" in Tahiti: "The keen manner in which Peu braids the strands of colonization, alcoholism, and domestic violence is nothing short of amazing". He concluded: and the Randell Cottage Writers' Residency in Wellington, New Zealand (2025).

Selected works Mutismes: E 'ore te vāvā (Haere Po, 2003; new edition published by Au Vent des îles, 2021) Pina (Au Vent des îles, 2016); also published in the United States (Restless Books, 2022) with an English translation by Jeffrey Zuckerman