Out of the Vaipe, the Deadwater: A Writer’s Early Life
Sep 2015 · BWB Texts Book 34 · Bridget Williams Books
Ebook
144
Pages
About this ebook
‘The Vaipe has the Roman Catholic Cathedral at its western boundary, the court and police station to the east, the market and harbour in front, and the swamps behind it. These are convenient boundaries that I’ve turned into a symbolic fence for the marvellous world of the Deadwater.’
Albert Wendt crosses into new and deeply personal territory in this stirring BWB Text. Returning to his boyhood in the Vaipe, a suburb of Apia in Samoa, sees Wendt confront elemental questions: Is the Vaipe he has created in his stories, poetry and novels really the Vaipe that existed and exists in real life? Or is it real only in his books? Is there a di erence between the two? And does it matter? The responses form a vivid narrative that draws on a life of award-winning writing, and returns full circle to the symbolic world of the Deadwater.
Albert Wendt crosses into new and deeply personal territory in this stirring BWB Text. Returning to his boyhood in the Vaipe, a suburb of Apia in Samoa, sees Wendt confront elemental questions: Is the Vaipe he has created in his stories, poetry and novels really the Vaipe that existed and exists in real life? Or is it real only in his books? Is there a di erence between the two? And does it matter? The responses form a vivid narrative that draws on a life of award-winning writing, and returns full circle to the symbolic world of the Deadwater.
About the author
Maualaivao Albert Wendt has for many years been regarded as one of the Pacific’s leading writers and a major influence on Pacific literature. His novels include Leaves of the Banyan Tree (which won the fiction section of the New Zealand Book Awards in 1980), Ola (which won the Commonwealth Book Prize for South-East Asia and the Pacific in 1991), The Mango’s Kiss and Sons for the Return Home. He is also a widely published poet. Albert Wendt recently retired as Professor of English at the University of Auckland.
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