Celestine Hitiura Vaite speaks to a group of mostly elderly Pohai Nani residents without using a microphone. Nobody yells that they can't hear her.

The Tahitian author is skilled at getting her voice across — across cultures, in different languages, past assumptions.

"When I travel — and I've been to the States three times, to Sweden, Finland, China ... " Vaite gestures to indicate her far-flung career, "they show me the respect that I deserve. Eh, I worked hard to write these books and produce two more children as well!"

She says things like this with such good humor that she doesn't come off as boasting. At age 39, she has four children, three novels and a mission to "blast" literacy rates in Tahiti, and really, anywhere else they need blasting. "There is only one library in Tahiti for 220,000 people!" she exclaims, adding that she may need to go into politics to change things.

Vaite has already done some blasting in her homeland. She was the first native Tahitian to win the Prix litteraire des etudiants, usually given to "French people who come to Tahiti, look at us for six months and go away and write a book about what they saw." She won in 2004 for her first novel, "Breadfruit," and again in 2006 for her follow-up book, "Frangipani."

She grew up in a shack in Faa'a, raised by a single mother who worked as a housekeeper and believed education would set her children free. Having no TV meant she learned to come up with her own stories.

"I would go up the hill with my favorite cousin, and we would watch the human traffic," she says. "An auntie would be walking past, and we would make up stories about where she was going, who she was seeing ... Now when I go to Tahiti, the kids are all in front of their 'pow pow pow' game stations."

In the middle of her presentation, she notices a young woman smiling at her in the audience. Vaite rushes over to greet her. "This girl," she says, "We met last year when I came to the University of Hawai'i. She wrote me the most beautiful letter!" Vaite reads it when she's feeling down. "You know, when the words just bang against your heart?"

Her funny and poignant tales of Materena Mahi, a Tahitian woman simple in her upbringing but wise in the ways of human nature, bang against the heart of anyone who has ever struggled for a decent life for their kids and held fast to their dreams.

Vaite has a Web site, www.celestinevaite.com, and her books, "Breadfruit," "Frangipani" and "Tiare in Bloom," are at bookstores and on Amazon.com.

Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at 535-8172 or lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com.