Dirt Poor Islanders

by Winnie Dunn

Dirt Poor Islanders is a potent, mesmerising novel that opens our eyes to the brutal fractures navigated when growing up between two cultures and the importance of understanding all the many pieces of yourself.

'Islanders must do everything together. We painted ngatu together. We crossed the ocean together. We settled on isles together. We took up Christianity together. We entered into new citizenships together. We became wage workers together. We lived with generations upon generations stacked in fibro houses together. We became half-White together. We got nits together. We sooked together. We stayed poor together. Together. Together. Together.'

Meadow Reed used to get confused when explaining that she had grandparents from Australia, Tonga and Great Britain. She'd say she was full-White and full-Tongan, thinking that so many halves made separate wholes. Despite the Anglo-Saxon genetics that gave Meadow a narrow nose and light-brown skin, everybody who raised her was Tongan. Everybody who loved her was Tongan. This was what made her Tongan.

Growing up in the heat-hummed streets of Mt Druitt in Western Sydney, Meadow will face palangis who think they are better than Fobs, women who fall into other women, what it means to have many mothers, a playful rain and even Pineapple Fanta.

For this half-White, half-Tongan girl, the world is bigger than the togetherness she has grown up in. Finding her way means pushing against the constraints of tradition, family and self until she becomes whole in her own right. Meadow is going to see that being a dirt poor Islander girl is more beautiful than she can even begin to imagine.

Genres: Australia, Fiction, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, Audiobook, Book Club, Family

304 pages, Paperback

First published March 27, 2024

About the author

Winnie Dunn is a writer of Tongan descent from Mount Druitt, Western Sydney. She is the general manager of Sweatshop Literacy Movement. Her work has been published in Meanjin, The Guardian and Sydney Review of Books. She is also the editor of several critically acclaimed anthologies, most notably Another Australia (Affirm Press, 2022). She was the recipient of a 2023 Australia Council for the Arts grant. Dirt Poor Islanders (Hachette) is her debut novel.

Reviews

[Natalia Figueroa Barroso · Rating 5 out of 5]

Alliteration, onomatopoeia, repetition, zillions of literary and political references, strong imagery, extended metaphors and similes, these are just a few literary techniques that Winnie uses in her brilliantly crafted debut Dirt Poor Islanders, alongside a beautifully weaved Tongan-Australian from Mount Druitt story.

Every character is described uniquely with their very own imagery, metaphors and similes, they are vibrant off the page.

Sisterhood and community are some of this gorgeous book’s strongest themes and political statements.

I didn't want it to end, so l will re-read it.

[Megan Maurice · Rating 5 out of 5]

Until about halfway through, I didn’t think I would give this five stars, as much as the writing is stunning. I wanted a bit more plot for these beautifully realised characters. But in the second half of the book I came to appreciate the story for what it is and loved it - a clear and intricate snapshot of a family who felt so real and full of love and life. I loved it.

[Karen Trenorden · Rating 5 out of 5]

I listened to this as an audiobook. I’m so glad I ‘read’ it that way as the narrator pronounced all the Tongan words properly and I could not have done that in my head. The grittiness and the rawness of this story has me in tears several times. Highly recommend!

[Sheree Joseph · Rating 5 out of 5]

A masterpiece. Each word a wonder and every sentence a symphony. An epic woven together for the ages. A gift to the world.

[The Honest Book Reviewer · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars

The story has weight and purpose, but the writing style never quite worked for me. It’s a voice some will embrace as raw and authentic, but for me it felt distancing.

That said, the novel’s intentions are clear. It highlights the Tongan culture and how Tongan people (some, most, all? The book never specifies this, which I think is a problem) deal with life in Australia. The book depicts a family that sticks together, supporting each other and family not in Australia, but it also depicts rougher edges to those family structures. The Tongan language woven throughout is a strong, authentic touch, grounding the book in cultural specificity.

Overall, the book isn’t terrible, and I can see what it’s aiming to say. But the style and tone weren’t for me, and the story’s impact felt diminished as a result.

[ariana · Rating 4 out of 5]

cya tomorrow bookclubbers

[Rhiann · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fabulous book of family, culture, belonging and learning to love yourself. The insight into Tongan life was wonderful.
The Audible version was absolutely beautifully narrated by my niece ‘Ana Ika 💖

[Pam Blower · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of a kind.
And personally helpful - as my North Sydney Catholic parish is twinned with the Mt Druitt Tongan parish.
The constant nits were almost the hardest thing to come to terms with.

[Kate Friend · Rating 3 out of 5]

3/4 way through I was waiting for something to happen, then the last quarter it all came together. Upon reflection it was really insightful into Tongan family culture. I loved the Mounty references!

[Pru · Rating 4 out of 5]

Made up of Tongan, Australian, and Great British heritage, Meadow Reed is struggling with her identity. Growing up in Mount Druitt, a suburb in Western Sydney known for increased levels of crime and low socio-economic status, doesn't help either. Meadow looks Fob, has many mothers, and is dirt poor, but it's time she came into her own and figured out who her whole self is.

I loved this book and can't believe I haven't seen more of it on booksta. I enjoyed the fact that I somewhat knew the area as Penrith is 15 minutes down the road and had an aunty who lived in Bidwill (a suburb of Mount Druitt). How poor Meadow was, broke my heart, and opened my eyes. I had never really thought about how big Islander families survive financially. Dirt Poor Islanders invites the reader to see a brief time of a complicated family life that will make you laugh, cry, and think.

[Rachel Baillie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was looking forward to reading this for a while as I love novels set in contemporary Australia. However some of my personal thoughts…

The way Tongan women were described felt fatphobic to me - constant descriptions of rolls and flab while the narrator was skinny and largely disgusted by the women’s bodies. It was just too repetitive and there’s other ways to describe large people.

There also wasn’t much of a journey / plot until the end, but even the narrators final trip to Tonga didn’t reveal much.

There were also comically evil WASPy characters which to me undermines the discussion of racism.

However I did enjoy learning about Tongan culture. The book reminded me of the beginning of To Kill a Mockingbird, as told through the eyes of a child.

[Angus McGregor · Rating 2 out of 5]

A vibrant cast of characters and some poignant reflections on the caring responsibilities bestowed on young women in large families was largely overshadowed.

The plot was thin, and for a coming of age story, the protagonist lacked an arc beyond a rushed reconciliation with Tonga towards the end. Her schooling and queerness were never given the space to become meaningful. Dunn depended on didactic descriptions to render her characters, who are often reduced to physical features, instead of letting their voices shine through.

[Georgia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Phwoar. This book is incredible! It’s gritty at times and deeply beautiful and personal. For a while there I thought it was only to be a 4 star for me, but it just comes together so perfectly it cannot be less than 5 stars! Dunn is the ?first ever Tongan Australian author and she does an incredible job with this literary fiction! I felt so immersed in the family and that learning of connection as a community. Incredible, incredible writing! What a way to start 2025!

[Colette Godfrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really felt for Meadow! She is ‘caught between two islands’ (Tonga and Australia), her home and family life in Western Sydney is chaotic and she just wants to escape into books and fantasy. An excellent coming of age story.

[Liam Fitzgerald · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ll land somewhere between my book club sisters….

[Janie · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The faka’uha washed my spirit clean”.

Lots of afakasi moments that I connected with. There really is nothing more healing than touching the soil of your own fonua. The garden of mothers made me emotional.

5/5⭐️

[✿ jessica ✿ · Rating 5 out of 5]

So happy I randomly stumbled upon this book! Half Tongan girlie from Sydney’s (inner) West here! 😭

First of all I, for one, do not do audiobooks. I've tried and I just think I prefer reading through a physical copy however this is the first audiobook that I listened through from start to finish and absolutely loved it. Whether it was because I got to hear our Tongan language spoken to me or because I could hear the familiarity in the way we Polynesian Australians talk in the narrator/dialogue - just something about this book made it so accessible and easy to listen to.

I enjoyed following Meadow, a biracial Tongan girl from Western Sydney, in her journey to understanding and loving herself, her people and her culture. I can't lie it's very saddening and often uncomfortable to hear how Meadow often describes and views her culture as inferior to the Western one she's grown up in, sometimes it feels almost grotesque. My experience as a half Polynesian kid in Sydney is completely different but I can recognise some of those feelings of insecurity. I also loved that it references real places in Sydney's West and Inner West - I can literally envision all the places mentioned in the book - Mount Druitt Westfields, North Strathfield Arnotts Factory etc.

4.5 stars! Can't wait to get my hands on a physical copy!

[Gretel Emerson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow wow wow I loved this so much. It’s just so beautiful!!!

[Malakai · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bearing in mind the challenges described by Woolf in A Room Of One's Own, and by the author's account of her first attempts at writing being critiqued, I'm so glad this book made it to publication. Contemporary fiction as a whole, meh. 🙄

Having tried Ulysses four times, and failed, I couldn't help but make comparisons between Joyce's book to Dunn's Dirt Poor Islanders. I even went back to my review of Ulysses. Which I still think is hot garbage.

What struck me about this story, more than the symptoms of poverty which I know and lived, were three character's lives whose loves were forbidden:
-One by a village elder because of the lower than dirt status of the suitor.
-Two by the colonialist imposition of a missionary faith that has since been abandoned by the laity of the colonising countries. Marriage is dispensed as a duty, a path to a future for the collective and once that future has been achieved, to be discarded like a tissue which the author writes of in this story. If you've been earmarked for the strategic marriage, you carry the family's prospective prosperity on your back.

I couldn't imagine sacrificing my choice of romantic partner or my prospect of love and happiness with the goal of securing residency visas for members of my family. I'm too selfish for that mullarchy. My dad knew this. He also knew that I had a self a abnegating stubbornness, too.

Yet that's exactly what Dunn's grandmother did.

Tongans don't consider themselves poor until they're unable to feed themselves. Thanks to deleteriously exorbitant donations to churches, many Tongan families are left in debt, paying for their salvation, and the lifestyles of their church ministers...and unable to feed themselves.

Being of Tongan heritage, born in Aotearoa and having moved to live in Australia, my Tongan aunties have always called me a "plastic Tongan". 😂 But the author's account of her visit to Tonga reminded me of when I took my eight year old biracial daughter to see her grand dad in 'Uiha, Ha' apai. She absolutely hated it.

Loves her grand dad, loves her cousins. But hated the food, hated the heat, hated the humidity, the bugs, the toilet. She hated having to pour herself a shower bucket from a cold tap in the ground. And then wash herself using the bucket of cold water and soap.

Since that trip she fantastically played up once, and I sharply reminded her that she was always welcome to stay with grand dad and I'd happily send her back to 'Uiha. Behaviour corrected. No issues since.

There were occasions I welled up with emotion reading this book. I think moving to Australia on my own (for work) has made me realise the importance of home, family and relationships. This book accentuated them even more.

[Paul McBride · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don’t know how I stumbled onto this Book probably an algorithm on some site and I am definitely not the audience the book was written to, but what an interesting story.
Dirt Poor Islanders is a story of a young teen girl struggling with belonging, acceptance and understanding the two worlds that make up who she is
Part white part Tongan, living in Sydney Australia. She is also beginning to realize she is a lesbian.
There are parts of this book that are very funny. Her Tongan family is enormous both in number of people and the size of them. Her descriptions are often hilarious, but she struggles because it is what she wants. She doesn’t want their food she wants a 20 piece McNuggets. She doesn’t want to share a room with sisters and step sisters and step step sisters and cousins. She wants to read books and write stories.
The book is a little confusing as to who everyone is and how they are related, and you may need a Australian slang dictionary, and the internet to look up words and foods described in the book. The story itself is a side of life completely foreign to most of us and for me was an eye opener. It is to some degree autobiographical and the author is quite fascinating be the first Australian/Tongan to get a book published.
Overall this was a very good book.

[George · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. An interesting, sometimes humorous account of life of Meadow Reed, a half-Tongan, half-White girl living with her aunts and then her father and his new wife in a suburb of Sydney, Australia. Her mother died when Meadow was very young. Meadow has two siblings and three half siblings. Her father is 30 years old and the father of six children. Meadow describes how her aunt became her mother. Meadow describes a number of general living events such as the death of a grandparent, the wedding of her aunt, and a number of everyday mishaps at home. Her father and step mother both work and there never seems to be much money in the house. The furniture is all second hand, as is their car. All her relatives are big people who eat lots. They wear cheap attire. The only time money seems to be no object is when there is a funeral, wedding, or birth.

A delightful read.

This book was shortlisted for the 2025 Miles Franklin Award.

[Selena Hanet-Hutchins · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am glad this book was published and glad
I read it but it didn’t really give me anything I hadn’t expected. (I did read a LOT of migrant lit in the 1980s and 1990s like this where the migrant experience is the plot.) It is absolutely what it says on the box. And no more. But there are some moments that make me think I’d really like to read her future third or fourth novel. Something is growing that may be more interesting than “just” the migrant story. The construction of the text uses textbook creative writing techniques that could potentially frustrate readers used to more skilful crafting of literary works but equally could make it an excellent teaching text for high school English or tertiary first year studies.
I enjoyed meeting the family characters and street/community cast and being embraced by the chaos of such a big, loving family

[Hannah Sultana · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful, sad but ultimately uplifting story about a girl who needs to connect to her roots, and find something to be proud of.
Reminded me of Melissa Lucashenko's stories.

The way she painted Mt Druitt and her family members, and ordinary daily goings on was so colourful. The crisis of identity in teenage years paired with the crisis of confidence in who she really is, was so beautifully portrayed.

The first book I've read about Tongan culture and the ways they must learn to weave it into their life in Australia, but most importantly, how they keep the connection to their homeland and culture strong.

Fabulous 👌

[Kim · Rating 5 out of 5]

2025 Miles Franklin Shortlist

Such an exceptional book. This is a writer to look out for.
A wonderful coming of age story, that pulls no punches.
Loved the way that sections of the book are prefaced by Islander myths and then get down into guts of family life.
I can see why people want this one to win the Miles Franklin prize and I think it would be a worthy winner.
I would love to read it again sometime, I think I would come away with more.
One that can be read in one sitting.

[Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5/5

I did not think I was going to rate this so highly halfway through. Slow to start, but the second half hit me like a freight train. I can tell Winnie Dunn and I are a similar age, because the references are 100% my own "povo" multicultural neighbourhood. Her catharsis radiates off the page.

Please keep funding diverse Australian art 🙏

[Mirelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Meadow is a Tongan-Australian hafekasi growing up in Western Sydney, shuffling between two homes and two cultures. Her story revolves around rich central characters and challenging themes.

A very memorable book, and not just because of the way Tongan language and mythology is woven throughout the book. I highly recommend.

[Dani · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wasn’t quite sure where this book was heading about half way but I didn’t mind as there characters were so interesting to me. And then the last quarter happened and it was hard to put my book down as it all came together.

[Hannah Griffith · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful story of a Pasifika family living in Aus who are battling with keeping their cultural identity in the face of prejudice. Super lovely, amazing cultural / family ties and a wholesome read. Nothing really happens; but in a very beautiful way.

[Bec Marlowe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Winnie’s writing style is absolutely amazing. She captures every single character in so few words yet I could see them so clearly!
She takes us into the world of growing up outside of mainstream Australia. A sad, loving and funny telling of the strength and resilience of family and heritage!

[Tamara · Rating 5 out of 5]

The way this book made me SOB. Felt as if I was reading about my own FOB family & experiences growing up as a fellow mixed-race Islander.