Author Talk: Barbara Dreaver

Kiribati-born Barbara Dreaver has covered the Pacific for over 30 years as the 1News Pacific Correspondent. During this time the vast ocean’s many island nations and territories have gone from being largely ignored by world leaders to the focus of big-power rivalry. And Dreaver has gone from a reporter struggling to get a job to one of the world’s leading Pacific correspondents.

With warmth, humour and astonishing honesty, she takes you inside her gruelling, often crazy life as she and her TV team attempt to stay ahead of power plays, coups, resource grabs, criminal activity and natural disasters across the world’s largest ocean.

Fearless and determined, Dreaver has gained the grudging respect of some leaders and the undying enmity of others. She’s been locked up in Fiji, threatened in Papua New Guinea, detained in Nauru, endangered in the Solomons. At great personal risk she has exposed the Pacific’s methamphetamine trade and its shadowy figures. She has uncovered Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s role in a deadly Samoan measles outbreak, and borne witness to the machinations of China and the United States as they vie for dominance in the region.

Above all, Dreaver reveals what goes on behind the scenes as she faces her biggest challenges, both personal and political.

Join award-winning journalist Barbara Dreaver for a compelling hour of stories, insights and revelations from her startlingly honest best-selling memoir.

Purchase your own copy of "Be Brave" from Rotorua Central PaperPlus at the event.