Meralda Warren

Meralda Elva Junior Warren (born 28 June 1959) is an artist and poet of the Pitcairn Islands, a remote British Overseas Territory in the South Pacific. She works in both English and Pitkern, the island's distinctive creole language. Her book, Mi Bas Side Orn Pitcairn, written with the island's six children, is the first to be written and published in both English and Pitkern. As an artist, she works with tapa cloth, a Polynesian tradition. She has also published a cookbook featuring Pitcairn Island cuisine. Warren has also served as the island's nurse, its only police officer, a ham radio operator, and as a member of the territory's governing council, among many other roles. Biography Warren was born on Pitcairn Island on 28 June 1959, the second child of Jacob Ralph "Chippie" Warren (1920–2007) and Mavis Mary Brown (born 1936). Warren is the sister of Jay Warren (born 1950) who served as the third mayor of the Pitcairn Islands (2004–2007), and previously as the colony's 29th magistrate (1991–1997). She is a first cousin of Mike Warren (born 1964), the colony's fourth mayor (2007–2014). She is the descendant of mutineers from the famed Mutiny on the Bounty (1789) and of the Tahitian men and women who journeyed with the mutineers in settling the island in 1790. Artist, poet, author and many other jobs Warren is a poet, and the author of two books, including Mi Base side orn Pitcairn ("My Favourite Place on Pitcairn"), written with children on Pitcairn Island. It is the first book written and published in Pitkern and English.