In a collection of short stories spanning several decades from the 1970s onward, The Bird in the Bird Dance follows individuals confronted with un-certainty as they move across multiple worlds, unsure of how to reconcile them. Elders, students, civil servants, and wanderers appear in moments where cultural memory is recalled, questioned, or forgotten. Heavy down-pours wash scenes away, sunlight reveals empty spaces, and radio broad-casts dissolve into disconnection. Rather than resolving these tensions, the writing refuses neat conclusions. The narratives portray lived histories as stories that do not end, so much as continue to “roll on”. Existentialist in sensibility, Russell Soaba’s literary voice emerged during the years surrounding Papua New Guinea’s independence in 1975. His work draws on the linguistic and cultural worlds of his country and its peoples, forging a literary language that intertwines English with Tok Ples (the indigenous languages of Papua New Guinea). Throughout his work, moments of the ordinary and fragments of everyday life unfold, examining how individuals live under the sustained pressures, contradictions, and tensions of a world in transition.

 Included within is a foreword by Nigel Krauth and an archival interview of Russell Soaba by Kirpal Singh.

Russell Soaba (b. 1950 in Tototo, Milne Bay Province) is a Papua New Guinean novelist, poet, editor, and educator. He was educated in Papua New Guinea, Australia, and the United States at Brown University, receiving an M.A. in Creative Writing, where his thesis, Higher Dirge, was supervised by Michael S. Harper. His published works include the novels Wanpis (1977) and Maiba: A Novel of Papua New Guinea (1985), alongside works of poetry, plays, and collected writings: Naked Thoughts: Poems & Illustrations (1978), Kwamra, A Season Of Harvest: Poems (2000), Scattered by the Wind: A Play (2014), and Drôle d’oiseau (2025). A central figure in the early years of the University of Papua New Guinea’s literary scene, he lectured in Literature & English Communication from 1982–2025. He is regarded as one of Papua New Guinea’s most prolific writers and an influential literary voice of Oceania. He lives in Port Moresby.