Marjorie Crocombe
Dr. Marjorie Tuainekore Tere Crocombe (born 19 June 1930) is an author and academic from the Cook Islands. She is the Cook Island's "most venerated living author". Biography. Crocombe was born in 1930 in Rarotonga, in the Cook Islands. Her early education was at Titikaveka Primary School, Epsom Girls' Grammar School and Whanganui Girls' College in New Zealand. She trained as a teacher at Ardmore Teachers Training College and in the 1950s began working for the Cook Islands Education Department, developing primary school readers in the Māori language. She then translated and published writings of early Cook  Islands missionaries including those of Pa Maretu Ariki and Ta'unga, as well as editing sections of the stories into simple English readers. In 1955 she began training teachers at Nikao Teachers’ College. After marrying she moved to Australia, then Papua New Guinea, where she became a radio broadcaster. In 1967 she began studying creative writing at the University of the South Pacific, and in 1971 was one of the first two Cook Islanders to graduate from that institution. She then went on to study Pacific history and sociology at the University of Hawaii, University of Papua New Guinea, and University  of California, Los Angeles and work as a lecturer at the University of the South Pacific Cook Islands and senior lecturer at the Centre for Pacific Studies at the University of Auckland. Crocombe often collaborated with her husband, Ron Crocombe, including co-writing and editing several books and articles. Following his death, she co-wrote (with Rod Dixon and Linda Crowl) a book on his life and work, "Ron Crocombe: E Toa : Pacific Writings to Celebrate His Life and Work." Bibliography. Non-fiction. Crocombe is also the author of numerous academic journal articles, including in "The Contemporary Pacific", "The Journal  of Pacific History", "Comparative Education," and "The Journal of the Polynesian Society". Recognition. In the 2009 New Year Honours, Crocombe was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to the Cook Islands, the Pacific, education, literature and the community. Crocombe was named Pacific Islands Woman of the Year by Island Business in 1990 and the Cook Islands Business & Professional Womens Association's woman of the year in 2000. In 2011, she was the first woman from the Cook Islands to receive a Doctor of Letters ("honoris causa") from the University of the South Pacific