Albert Wendt is by far the most prolific and most influential contemporary Pacific Island writer. He has written four books of poetry, three collections of short stories, five novels and has edited three anthologies of Pacific writing. Albert Wendt has worked in his native Samoa, in Fiji, in New Zealand for many years, and in Hawai‘i; he has taught literature and creative writing and been a major force in the encouragement and promotion of young Pacific Island writers.

This is the first extended study of this important writer and is an introduction to his work designed for students and general readers. Setting Wendt’s achievement in the settings of Pacific culture, New Zealand contemporaryy writing and post-colonial discourse, author Paul Sharrad presents a chronological treatment of all Wendt’s major works.

Author

More about Paul Sharrad

Reviews

A first-rate study of the Pacific’s most important writer to date, which is likely to become the definitive work on Wendt and, thanks to its careful contextualization of his work in relation to debates about Pacific culture, also marks an important addition to criticism on Pacific writing more generally. – Journal of Commonwealth Literature