The cover artwork of this book created by Rotuman artist John Mausio, and titled ‘I am Here’ depicts an arresting image of a person painted as a combination of shadow and solid form, seated on a layer of rocks against a backdrop of a woven and solid brick wall. Mausio is himself an active artist in the mental health area working with the St Giles Hospital, a key centre of the book’s narrative.
Comprising of seven chapters and populated with images of people and buildings, Leckie states ‘this book explores the way the practices and discourse of modern bio-medicine and mental health were articulated in local communities as well as in the asylum’ (p.3). Furthermore, her interest is in ‘reading the lunacy archive to address how madness was constructed and managed and how it affected individuals and communities in colonial Fiji’ (p.4). Leckie draws on archival research from ‘the remaining records of former patients at St Giles to explore the nebulous condition and label of madness and states of mental difference’ (p.4). These records are described as ‘fragmentary’ and ‘scribbled in shorthand by colonial officials and the doctors’ (p.5). Nonetheless, they provide an account of a complex and deeply affective narratives.
