Albert Wendt

"Few novelists of the Pacific islands could be less derivative in terms of the real vision into the life and character of non-Western society.... Even fewer novels, Western or Third World, can reach the strength and artistic power of Pouliuli." --World Literature Today

Pouliuli

De levensloop van een clanleider op West-Samoa die zonder scrupules streeft naar rijkdom en macht, staat model voor de tragiek en vervreemding als gevolg van de snelle overgang van traditionele naar westerse maatschappij.

Leaves of the Banyan Tree

Naomi Fuamatu

Tamasailau M. Suaalii-Saun

Vitolia Mo'a

Upolu Luma Va'ai

Samoan Indigenous Knowledge and Religion

Whispers and Vanities

Journey through the many stories and worlds of the immortal Vela - Vela, so red and ugly at birth they called him the Cooked; Vela the lonely admirer of pigs and the connoisseur of feet; Vela the lover of song maker Mulialofa the Boneman. Follow him down through the centuries on his travels, encountering the single-minded society of the Tagatanei and the Smellocracy of Olfact. Accompany him, too, as he recounts the stories of Lady Nafanua, the fearsome warrior queen, before whose powers Palagi priests and travelling chroniclers still bow down today.

The Adventures of Vela

This early collection of eight short stories and a novella is vintage Wendt. Stories convey the unease of traditional island community caught up in the rapid changes of the modern world. Wendt writes with enviable directness and with deep feeling: comedy and tragedy are often hard to distinguish as his characters struggle to come to terms with their changing world.

And Other Stories

Flying-Fox in a Freedom Tree

Originally published in 1973, this story of star-crossed lovers spotlights the complex nature of love, freedom, and racism in New Zealand. Samoan writer Albert Wendt's first novel, Sons for the Return Home, has long been out of print. Yet, readers continue to respond to the clarity of vision in this simple, powerful story of cross-cultural encounter.

Sons for the Return Home

A dynamic group has emerged in Auckland whose members refer to themselves as the Tribe. Mainly Polynesian, they grow up together, rise from poverty and become successful professionals, bound by love and fierce loyalty. At the centre, is Aaron, who lives at the edge of danger, shady dealings and self-destruction. When Daniel, receives a call in Hawaii telling him that Aaron has been killed, he returns to New Zealand, and steps into the most dangerous crisis the Tribe has faced. They must confront the truth about who Aaron is and what they, as the Tribe, have become, while facing the infidelity and greed that threatens to tear the group apart.

Breaking Connections

Some Modern Poetry from Western Samoa

Poems 1961 to 1974

Inside Us the Dead

Albert Wendt recalls his boyhood in the Vaipe, a suburb of Apia in Samoa, just metres from the local cinema, and his life-changing schooling as a scholarship student at an initially foreign New Plymouth Boys' High School. Wendt also explores his fascination with traditional pre-Christian Samoan religion, banned by the missionaries, and while he laments its decline and partial disappearance, he also celebrates its richness and depth.

A Writer's Early Life

Out of the Vaipe, the Deadwater

This early collection of eight short stories and a novella is vintage Wendt. Stories convey the unease of a traditional island community caught up in the rapid changes of the modern world.

Flying-fox in a Freedom Tree

Poems

Shaman of Visions

Auckland, one summer weekend. A family fused together by the energies of multicultural Aotearoa New Zealand faces meltdown as tensions build between migrant and New Zealand-born generations, and between Samoan, Mâori, and Pâlagi family members. Why is it we've strayed this far? We think we've found a firm fit to this land. To our children and mokopuna it's home. That's good enough pe ‘a o‘o mai le Amen and Papatûânuku embraces us ...

The Songmaker's Chair

"Salepa, deserted by hsi wife and children, out of money and luck, is determined to use his one talent on the unfortunate inhabitants of the nearby town; Fiasola, a respected head teacher, who, in his forty-ninth year, feels the Miracle Man is being born and God has deserted him; Gabriel, now middle-aged, going through his dead father's papers, with his son, conjuring up the tragic history of his family ; and the self-styled Saviour who is obsessed with ridding his village of the Bad Smell - these are some of the ... characters who people Albert Wendt's new collection of short stories about his native Samoa. ..."--Jacket.

A Collection of Short Stories

The Birth and Death of the Miracle Man

In Albert Wendt's new poems, his first collection for over a decade, snapshots of the close and familiar contrast with strange and mythical sequences from a vast Pacific epic in progress and a vivid impressionistic montage of global travel in the late twentieth century. The rich diversity and range of Photographs is astonishing, as this complex writer moves with ease and fluency from ancient Polynesia to contemporary China to family celebrations in an Auckland garden, and through a variety of tones and voices. The collection celebrates grandchildren, family, ancestors and a heritage that stretches back to the atua; and shows a profound and compassionate understanding of the ways we now live in these islands.

Photographs

From the valleys of Hawaii to the seasons of a garden in Auckland, this extraordinary offering of poems explores a variety of themes. Though hips need replacing, poets grow older, tsunamis destroy, and friends slip away, a spirit of renewal and humor pervades the collection. Alert and full of love, this is a moving and compelling book by a celebrated Pacific writer.

From Manoa to a Ponsonby Garden

Ultimately a book about ageing and the consideration of death, this collection moves from the warm valley winds of Hawai'i to the seasons of a garden in Auckland. In Hawai'i Wendt watches the changing shadows of the Ko'olau mountains from his verandah; considers the nature of mauli, the seat of life; walks protected in his partner's perfumed slipstream to work; and writes to fellow poet Hone Tuwhare from the excesses of Las Vegas. In the second half of the book we move to the garden in Ponsonby in 40 vivid 'garden' poems that are the triumph of the collection. Here joints need replacing, poets grow older, tsunami destroy and friends slip away, but a spirit of renewal and humour pervades - along with prowling cats, baking muffins, flashing kingfishers and visiting mokopuna. And scattered among the garden poems will be some of Wendt's inky, drawn poems - the best are about the Samoan tsunami or galu afi. From Manoa to a Ponsonby Garden is an extraordinary, alert and confident book by one of our most celebrated writers.

In Albert Wendt's first collection for over a decade, snapshots of the close and familiar contrast with strange and mythical sequences from a vast Pacific epic in progress and a vivid impressionistic montage of global travel in the late twentieth century. The rich diversity and range of Photographs is astonishing, as this complex writer moves with ease and fluency from ancient Polynesia to contemporary China to family celebrations in an Auckland garden, and through a variety of tones and voices. The collection celebrates grandchildren, family, ancestors and a heritage that stretches back to the atua; and shows a profound and compassionate understanding of the ways we now live in these islands.

Poems by Albert Wendt

The Songmaker's Chair tells of a Samoan family, the Aiga Sa Peseola, who have been in Auckland since the 1950s. Over three generations the family have intermarried with M ori and Pakeha to develop what they refer to as the Peseola Way. Central to that Way is the magnificent Polynesian exploration and settlement of the Pacific, and a songmaking tradition which Peseola Olaga, the family patriarch has inherited from his father. At the heart of the play is the love between Peseola Olaga and Malaga, his wife, and how they've struggled to give their children a good life in Aotearoa. For theirs is the Peseola Way: defiant, honest and unflinching even in the face of death.

Since the 1960s, Albert Wendt has created a profound and fabulous Pacific world that is uniquely his own. A fictional world focused on Samoa and New Zealand and reaching out to the centres of the world, a world inhabited by the richest menagerie of characters in Pacific fiction, characters whose lives and stories reflect our own complex depths. Sixteen years in the writing, The Mango's Kiss is a striking addition to that world.Pele's first moment of remembered consciousness is the morning kiss of the mango fruit on her cheek. That kiss brings with it the awareness of mortality, pleasure and pain. It is a gift from her father, Mautu Tuifolau, the local pastor, the man she adores. Love is never simple, though, and in this story of the struggles and passions of Pele and her family, it must adapt to the growing world that stretches out from village life in Samoa to the cities of Europe, America and New Zealand. It must accommodate the conflicts of a gifted family and the attraction of extraordinary outsiders, from a famous English writer to an American anthropologist, missionaries and the trader Barker, with his quest for gold and epic tales of an adventurous past. And it must encompass the family's links to the ancient gods of pre-missionary times and move through the turn of the nineteenth century, the First World War, the terrible Spanish Influenza Epidemic and beyond.Albert Wendt is of the Aiga Sa-Tuaopepe of Lefaga, the Aiga Sa-Maualaivao of Malie and the Aiga Sa-Patu of Vaiala of Samoa. He first came to New Zealand in 1952, where he went to high school, teachers training college and university. Later he was Principal of Samoa College and Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Professor of Pacific Literature at the University of the South Pacific. At present he is Professor of English at the University of Auckland. He has published numerous novels and poems as well as short stories.

Albert Wendt

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