Imagine living in the country of your birth, and of your ancestors, yet being treated as a third-class citizen. This is the plight of Solomoni people, whose forebears came to Fiji from the Solomon Islands as indentured labourers in the late 19th century.
Over the last 150 years, the Anglican Church has played a pivotal role in helping them, but it now faces its own challenges.
Their story includes massive injustices inflicted by Australian blackbirders, the economic forces that drove that trade, and the brutal conditions on Fiji's cotton and coconut plantations, through to how climate change and Chinese power politics now intersect to deepen their hardship.
How this has come to be is explored in this accessible blend of history, economics and social analysis by an author who lived in Fiji between 2022 and 2024 and witnessed many of these communities, often living in slums and on the edge.
