KIANA DAVENPORT is an extraordinary writer. I knew this years ago from reading her novel "Shark Dialogues." But even that book, which relieved me of considerable ignorance about Hawai'i and Native Hawaiians, did not prepare me for the breathtaking stories and magically precise writing in her "Prize-Winning Pacific Stories," her three volume collection just published by Audible audio books. (Also on Kindle)
This is a collection not only about the people of Hawai'i, but also of Fiji, Guam, Easter Island (Rapa Nui), Tahiti, Australia, Aotearoa, and other fascinating islands in the Pacific that I had never heard of. I have never encountered characters like those in these stories, which has felt shocking, as I consider myself well-read.
It is as if we are finally seeing a third of the planet that we never knew existed, and it is revealing itself to us because the author, a mixed-race Native Hawaiian, has come forward to tell the rest of the world what has been - and is still - going on in the Pacific.
What has "European Civilization" been like for those who - never inviting it - were forced to endure it? What were they like, these "indigenous civilizations" before the "long pigs" (white men, some of whom were eaten) invaded and stole their islands, and their cultures? Most of these stories are fiction, but they are based on actual history.
Who added so many vivid colors to Gauguin's paintings of "his" Tahitians, if what he saw was mostly green? (An astonishing story!) Were the natives of Nauru island so rich from bird guano that they actually drove Maserati's? Did the French Foreign Legionnaire's Batarde, finally find her father? And did the Aborigine girl really seek out her white rapists and blow them away? These stories haunt me.
So many tantalizing observatons, conjectures, quandaries! We are left with the question - What makes writers? Who are we? How do we get to paint pictures in other people's minds so that their minds are expanded. How do we bring time back to be observed, examined and if possible, understood?
These Pacific stories accomplish that feat. Please, do read this collection. You cannot read Kiana Davenport without being transformed.
- Alice Walker
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