Pacific Islands Writing: The Postcolonial Literatures of Aotearoa/New Zealand and Oceania

by Michelle Keown

Overview

The Oxford Studies in Postcolonial Literatures series offers stimulating and accessible introductions to definitive topics and key genres and regions within the rapidly diversifying field of postcolonial literary studies in English.

The first book of its kind, Pacific Islands Writing offers a broad-ranging introduction to the postcolonial literatures of the Pacific region. Drawing upon metaphors of oceanic voyaging, Michelle Keown takes the reader on a discursive journey through a variety of literary and cultural contexts in the Pacific, exploring the Indigenous literatures of Polynesia, Melanesia, and Micronesia, and also investigating a range of European or Western writing about the Pacific, from the adventure fictions of Herman Melville, R. L. Stevenson, and Jack London to the P:akeh:a European) settler literatures of Aotearoa/New Zealand. The book explores the relevance of 'international' postcolonial theoretical paradigms to a reading of Pacific literatures, but it also offers a region-specific analysis of key authors and texts, drawing upon Indigenous Pacific literary theories, and sketching in some of the key socio-historical trajectories that have inflected Pacific writing. Well-established Indigenous Pacific authors such as Albert Wendt, Witi Ihimaera, Alan Duff, and Patricia Grace are considered alongside emerging writers such as Sia Figiel, Caroline Sinavaiana-Gabbard, and Dan Taulapapa McMullin. The book focuses primarily upon Pacific literature in English - the language used by the majority of Pacific writers - but also breaks new ground in examining the growing corpus of francophone and hispanophone writing in French Polynesia, New Caledonia, and Easter Island/Rapa Nui.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199276455
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	11/24/2007
Series:	Oxford Studies in Postcolonial Literatures
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	7.44(w) x 7.13(h) x 0.63(d)

About the Author

Michelle Keown was born and raised in Aotearoa/New Zealand. She is currently Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Edinburgh and has published widely on Mäori, Pacific Island and New Zealand writing.

Table of Contents

List of maps and figuresChronology of key events and publications1. Introduction: Voyaging Through the Pacific2. Europeans in the Pacific3. Warfare and Westernisation: Narratives of Conflict, Resistance, and Social Change4. The 1970s and Beyond: the Emergence of the New Pacific Literatures in English5. Orality, Textuality, and Memory: The Language of Pacific Literatures6. Conclusion: Pacific Diasporas

Editorial Reviews

"Offers readers a welcome, highly readable picture of diverse communities of writers - manipulating the past, present, and future to shape vibrant cultural responses to their place and time." —South Atlantic Review

From the Publisher