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Hawaiian Literature
Hawaiian literature has its origins in Polynesian mythology. It was originally preserved and expanded solely through oral traditions, as the ancient Hawaiians never developed a writing system. Written literature in the Hawaiian language and literary works in other languages by authors resident in Hawaii did not appear until the nineteenth century, when the arrival of American missionaries introduced the English language, the Latin alphabet, and Western notions of composition to the kingdom. The earliest compilations of traditional Hawaiian writing were made by John Papa ʻĪʻī, Samuel Kamakau, Kepelino Keauokalani, and David Malo. They were succeeded by King Kalākaua, Martha Beckwith, Abraham Fornander, and William Drake Westervelt, all of whom produced later collections retelling or adapting Hawaii's oral histories. Other noted authors whose works feature Hawaiian settings and themes, or who were temporarily resident in Hawaii, include Herman Melville, Mark Twain, Robert Lo ...
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Polynesian Mythology
The Polynesian narrative or Polynesian mythology encompasses the oral traditions of the people of Polynesia (a grouping of Central and South Pacific Ocean island archipelagos in the Polynesian Triangle) together with those of the scattered cultures known as the Polynesian outliers. Polynesians speak languages that descend from a language reconstructed as Proto-Polynesian - probably spoken in the Tonga - Samoa area around 1000 BC. Description Prior to the 15th century AD, Polynesian peoples fanned out to the east, to the Cook Islands, and from there to other groups such as Tahiti and the Marquesas. Their descendants later discovered the islands from Tahiti to Rapa Nui, and later Hawai‘i and New Zealand. The latest research puts the settlement of New Zealand at about 1300 AD. The various Polynesian languages are all part of the Austronesian language family. Many are close enough in terms of vocabulary and grammar to permit communication between some other language speakers. ...
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Hawaiian Renaissance
The Hawaiian Renaissance (also called the Hawaiian Cultural Renaissance) was the Hawaiian resurgence of a distinct cultural identity that draws upon traditional kānaka maoli culture, with a significant divergence from the tourism-based culture which Hawaiʻi was previously known for worldwide (along with the rest of Polynesia). The Hawaiian Renaissance has been pointed to as a global model for biocultural restoration and sustainability. First Hawaiian Renaissance The First Hawaiian Renaissance had its foundation in the nationalist sentiments of King Kamehameha V. At the time Hawaii was an independent kingdom. The intention was to form a contemporary national identity rather than modeling Hawaii after Great Britain and the culture of the United States. King Kalākaua had a controversial rise to power due to the internal conflicts between family lineage. One half of the island wanted Kalākaua, whereas the other half cheered for his competitor. The result spread tension betw ...
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George Kahumoku, Jr
George Kahumoku Jr. is a Grammy Award winning Hawaiian musician specializing in slack-key guitar Slack-key guitar (from Hawaiian ''kī hōalu'', which means "loosen the uningkey") is a fingerstyle genre of guitar music that originated in Hawaii after Portuguese cowboys introduced Spanish guitars there in the late 19th century. The Hawaiian .... Born in Kona on the Big Island of Hawaiʻi, he was labeled as "Hawaii's Renaissance Man" by Nona Beamer because of his far reaching talents: farmer, author, musician & composer, sculptor and artist, and Hawaiian cultural practicioner, particularly as it relates to the land or 'aina.''Maui Time Weekly''. He received the 2007 Grammy Award for Best Hawaiian Music Album for the compilation album ''Legends Of Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar – Live From Maui'' and subsequently 2 more for ''Treasures of Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar'' and ''Masters of Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar, vol.2''. All of these compilation albums were recorded live at his Sl ...
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Garrett Hongo
Garrett Kaoru Hongo (born May 30, 1951) is a Yonsei, fourth-generation Japanese American academic and poet. His work draws on Japanese American history and his own experiences.Arakawa, Suzanne K. (2005). "Hongo, Garrett (Kaoru)", in He was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for ''The River of Heaven'' (1988). Early life Hongo was born in Volcano, Hawai'i. He attended Pomona College and the University of Michigan, and received a Master of Fine Arts degree in English from the University of California at Irvine. Hongo has been awarded fellowships from the Watson Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Rockefeller Foundation. Career Hongo is a professor of creative writing at the University of Oregon. From 1989 through 1993, he was the director of the university's Program in Creative Writing. Hongo has published three books of poetry. His first was ''Yellow Light'' (1982), and ''The River of Heaven'' (1988) was a Lamon ...
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John Dominis Holt IV
John Dominis Holt IV (June 4, 1919 – March 29, 1993) was a Native Hawaiian writer, poet and cultural historian. In 1979, he was recognized as a Living Treasures of Hawaiʻi for his contribution to the Hawaiian Renaissance. Family He was born June 4, 1919, in Honolulu, to John Dominis Holt III (1885–1950) and May Ellen Bailey (1892–1975). His paternal grandfather was Colonel John Dominis Holt II, an officer of King Kalākaua and Queen Liliuokalani's military staff. From his mother, he descended from Hawaiian missionary and artist Edward Bailey. Holt was of mixed Native Hawaiian, Tahitian and English descent, known as a ''hapa haole'' in Hawaiian. According to family tradition, his ancestors included Hawaiian and Tahitian royalty, Lucien Bonaparte, the younger brother of French Emperor Napoleon, and British Admiral Lord George Paulet. By the time of his generation, the wealth and social standing of the family were long gone; but he spent his youth surrounded by olde ...
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The Descendants (novel)
''The Descendants'' is a novel written by Kaui Hart Hemmings. The 2011 American film ''The Descendants'', directed by Alexander Payne, with the adapted screenplay by Payne, Nat Faxon, and Jim Rash, is based on this novel. Plot summary Matthew King was once considered one of the most fortunate men in Hawaii. His missionary ancestors were financially and culturally progressive—one even married a Hawaiian princess, making Matt a royal descendant and one of the state's largest landowners. Now his luck has changed. His two daughters are out of control: Ten-year-old Scottie is a disrespectful troublemaker with a desperate need for attention, and seventeen-year-old Alex, a former model, is a recovering drug addict. Matt's wife, Joanie, lies in a coma after a boat-racing accident and will soon be taken off life support. The Kings can hardly picture life without her, but as they come to terms with this tragedy, their sadness is mixed with a sense of freedom that shames them&mdash ...
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Kaui Hart Hemmings
Kaui Hart Hemmings is an American writer. She is best known for her novel, ''The Descendants'' (2007), which was adapted into an award-winning film. Biography Kaui Hart Hemmings was born and raised in Hawaii. She attended Punahou School for high school, graduating in 1994. She attended Colorado College and graduated in 1998. She earned her M.F.A. at Sarah Lawrence College in 2002. She was one of Stanford's 2002 Stegner Fellows. Her debut novel, ''The Descendants'' (2007), was published in 22 countries and was a New York Times bestseller. It was adapted into the 2011 film ''The Descendants'', starring George Clooney and written by Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon, and Jim Rash. Hemmings had previously published a collection of her stories, ''House of Thieves''. She has written two other novels for adults, ''The Possibilities'' (2014) and ''How to Party With an Infant (''2016), and one for young readers, entitled ''Juniors'' (2015). In 2019, she published her novel ''Testimony f ...
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Glen Grant (historian)
Glen Grant (February 23, 1947 – June 19, 2003) was a Hawaiian historian, author and folklorist. He was primarily known for his Obake Files, a collection of articles and stories regarding native and imported folktales and mythology in Hawaii. Grant was also the author of the Chicken Skin series of ghost story anthologies, as well as host of the long-running radio show of the same name. Life Grant was born and raised in the west Los Angeles area near Palms and Culver City. He was the son of Hollywood special effects wizard Cliff Grant, who worked on such films as ''Gone with the Wind'', '' The Wizard of Oz'' and ''Forbidden Planet.'' The elder Grant helped create the extraterrestrial robot Gort from ''The Day the Earth Stood Still'' and Robby the Robot from ''Forbidden Planet''. "Robby eventually became a member of the Grant household, where the younger Grant said he would see the robot, stashed in the family garage, on a daily basis. Though the robot ultimately ended up in a ...
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Darlaine Mahealani Dudoit
Darlaine Māhealani MuiLan Dudoit (1954 – August 28, 2002) was a Hawaiian poet, essayist and editor. Her work appeared in the literary journals '' Manoa'', the ''Hawaii Review'', and ''The Southwest Review'', as well as the anthologies ''Sister Stew'', ''Growing Up Local'', and ''Against Extinction''. Dudoit founded the literary journal '''Oiwi: A Native Hawaiian Journal in 1999 and served as its first editor. According to her successor, Ku'ualoha Ho'omanawanui, "Mahealani knew how difficult it was for Hawaiian writers to get published in other venues for various reasons. ''Oiwi'' was created as a place where Hawaiian literary voices could be heard, nurtured, appreciated." She received the Ernest Hemingway Memorial Award for Poetry in 1989, the Elliot Cades Award for Literature in 1999, and a John Dominis Holt Fellowship in 2002. Dudoit was found dead in a Kaneohe hotel on August 28, 2002, along with her husband Sanford Kapana. The Honolulu police department ruled her death ...
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Gavan Daws
Gavan Daws is an American writer, historian and filmmaker residing in Honolulu, Hawaii. He writes about Hawaii, the Pacific, and Asia. He is a retired professor of history at University of Hawaii at Manoa. Daws is originally from Australia and got his B.A. in English and History from the University of Melbourne. He has a Ph.D. in Pacific History from the University of Hawaii at Manoa. His best-known works are ''Shoal of Time: A History of the Hawaiian Islands'', in print since 1968; ''Holy Man: Father Damien of Molokai'', the biography of a nineteenth-century missionary priest to Hawaii who served leprosy sufferers, and who has recently been canonized; and ''Prisoners of the Japanese: POWs of World War II in the Pacific.'' Daws co-produced and co-directed ''Angels of War: The People of Papua New Guinea and World War II'', which won the Australian Film Institute Award for Best Documentary. His other work includes song lyrics and a stage play with music and choreography. He is a ...
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Kiana Davenport
Kiana Davenport (born Diana Davenport in Honolulu, Hawaii) is an American author of part- Hawaiian ancestry. She is the author of critically acclaimed novels ''Shark Dialogues'' (1994) and ''Song of the Exile'', both of which explore aspects of life as a Polynesian in Western society. Her most recent novel was the bestselling ''House of Many Gods''. All three books are connected combining Hawaiian family saga The family saga is a genre of literature which chronicles the lives and doings of a family or a number of related or interconnected families over a period of time. In novels (or sometimes sequences of novels) with a serious intent, this is often ... with references to Hawaiian political and social history from the 18th century to present days. She has also written two Kindle eBooks namely "House of Skin" and "Cannibal Nights". The latter was released in July 2011. Her novel ''The Spy Lover'' recounts the story of a Chinese immigrant soldier, Johnny Tom, caught in the tumul ...
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Eric Chock
Eric Chock is a Hawaiian poet, scholar and editor. He served as a professor of English and humanities at the University of Hawaiʻi – West Oʻahu, and coordinated the state's "Poets in the Schools" program for more than twenty years. In 1978, he cofounded the literary journal ''Bamboo Ridge'' with Darrell H. Y. Lum to encourage the growth of a distinctly Hawaiian literary style. Authors whose works appeared in ''Bamboo Ridge'' included Gary Pak, Lois-Ann Yamanaka, Rodney Morales, Wing Tek Lum, and Cathy Song Cathy Song (born Cathy-Lynn Song; August 20, 1955) is an American poet who has won numerous awards including the Yale Series of Younger Poets Prize and the Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America. She uses her heritage, coming .... Pak described the journal as "the primary literary force in Hawaii today", and it received the Hawaii Award for Literature in 1996 from the Hawaii Literary Arts Council. The success and influence of the Bamboo Ridge group of ...
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