Link to the series webpage here
Named a prestigious 2019 Choice Reviews Outstanding Academic Title
Choice is a publishing unit at the Association of College & Research Libraries, a division of the American Library Association.
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Reviews & Media
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Praise
A much-needed and timely collection. This volume not only provides a comprehensive overview of the literature and art of a region that long has been underrepresented, but gives voice to the beauty, diversity, and power that has developed and strengthened these islands’ cultural legacies through their dynamic interactions with both the region and the world. This should be required reading, not just for Pacific literature but all literature courses interested in the ways that local knowledges engage global currents.
–Erin Suzuki, University of California, San Diego
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“This collection is important because it will provide readers with insights into the thinking of Micronesians today and the kinds of issues they are grappling with in their efforts to understand where they who they are and their place in contemporary society. As the most comprehensive and most diverse in its offering of Micronesian voices, this anthology fills an important gap in the written literatures of contemporary Oceania.”
–Vilsoni Hereniko, University of Hawaiʻi, Mānoa
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Description
For the first time, poetry, short stories, critical and creative essays, chants, and excerpts of plays by Indigenous Micronesian authors have been brought together to form a resounding—and distinctly Micronesian—voice. With over two thousand islands spread across almost three million square miles of the Pacific Ocean, Micronesia and its peoples have too often been rendered invisible and insignificant both in and out of academia. This long-awaited anthology of contemporary indigenous literature will reshape Micronesia’s historical and literary landscape.
Presenting over seventy authors and one hundred pieces, Indigenous Literatures from Micronesia features nine of the thirteen basic language groups, including Palauan, Chamorro, Chuukese, I-Kiribati, Kosraean, Marshallese, Nauruan, Pohnpeian, and Yapese. The volume editors, from Micronesia themselves, have selected representative works from throughout the region—from Palau in the west, to Kiribati in the east, to the global diaspora. They have reached back for historically groundbreaking work and scouted the present for some of the most cited and provocative of published pieces and for the most promising new authors.
Richly diverse, the stories of Micronesia’s resilient peoples are as vast as the sea and as deep as the Mariana Trench. Challenging centuries-old reductive representations, writers passionately explore seven complex themes: “Origins” explores creation, foundational, and ancestral stories; “Resistance” responds to colonialism and militarism; “Remembering” captures diverse memories and experiences; “Identities” articulates the nuances of culture; “Voyages” maps migration and diaspora; “Family” delves into interpersonal and community relationships; and “New Micronesia” gathers experimental, liminal, and cutting-edge voices.This anthology reflects a worldview unique to the islands of Micronesia, yet it also connects to broader issues facing Pacific Islanders and indigenous peoples throughout the world. It is essential reading for anyone interested in Pacific, indigenous, diasporic, postcolonial, and environmental studies and literatures.
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Pictures from Book Launches in Hawaiʻi and Guam
