My Mother Calls Me Yaltep is the moving story of a man born into a Simbu community just before the coming of the kiaps.

Yaltep avoids these intruders and grows to manhood in the traditional manner of his people. Drawn by curiosity, he goes to work on a plantation on the coast. From this experience, he comes to see himself not just as a Kuman villager, but as a Highlander.

When he returns to his beloved Highlands, Yaltep realises that the old life will soon be changed forever. He struggles to learn to read, and to understand the parliamentary democracy that is being introduced. He emerges as a Kuman villager, a Highlander, and a proud Papua New Guinean.

IGNATIUS KILAGE, born 1943 in Yalawe in Gembogl District of Papua New Guinea’s Simbu Province, was an author, priest, and politician who served as the fourth Governor-General of Papua New Guinea.