Out of the Vaipe, the Deadwater A Writer's Early Life

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.