What Maev contributed to my story shines through the letters I wrote to her from 1978 to 2017 - mainly from my home base in Rome. When that surviving correspondence began, she was the head of what became the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at the University of Papua New Guinea. On retirement in 1989 she returned to Australia and chose to live in Canberra. There she could have richer contacts with Papua New Guinea and the rest of Melanesia.

During a long and fascinating life, Maev showed herself a person 'for others', constantly concerned to promote the rights and wellbeing of everyone, no matter who they were. The letters I wrote to her persistently reflect the impact of her wise love on me, her younger brother Gerald. - From the Preface

Gerald Glynn O'Collins SJ is an Australian Jesuit priest, author, academic and educator. For more than three decades, he was professor of systematic and fundamental theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University (Rome). In 2006, O'Collins was made a Companion of the General Division of the Order of Australia (AC).