The Rise of Pacific Literature: Decolonization, Radical Campuses and Modernism

Join us in celebrating the release of The Rise of Pacific Literature: Decolonization, Radical Campuses, and Modernism, co-authored by Dr Maebh Long and Dr Matthew Hayward.

The monograph will be launched by Dr Keakaokawai Hemi, Assistant Vice-Chancellor Pacific.

About the Authors

Dr Maebh Long is a senior lecturer (above the bar) in English at the University of Waikato. She is the author of Assembling Flann O’Brien (2014) and the editor of The Collected Letters of Flann O’Brien (2018).

Dr Matthew Hayward is a senior lecturer in literature and the acting head of the School of Pacific Arts, Communication, and Education at the University of the South Pacific.

Long and Hayward are also co-investigators of the Oceanian Modernism project and co-editors of New Oceania: Modernisms and Modernities in the Pacific (2019).

About the Book

The Rise of Pacific Literature is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the roots of contemporary Pacific writing and its place in world literature. It honours our literary ancestors while charting new critical waters, embodying the spirit of ka mua ka muri—walking backward into the future—that animates so much of our creative work. Fa‘afetai tele lava to the authors for this landmark contribution to Pacific literary scholarship. Selina Tusitala Marsh, Aotearoa New Zealand Poet Laureate and scholar.

Long and Hayward’s detailed account splendidly enriches the story of Pacific literature's development by revealing how particular students, teachers, groups, courses, and events in and around universities transformed this writing in a crucial period. The Rise of Pacific Literature is at once the most comprehensive history of its kind—a go-to resource for readers already well versed in the subject—and a valuable, lucid, and engaging introduction to Pacific literature for those otherwise unfamiliar with it. Douglas Mao, editor of The New Modernist Studies.

This book is a triumph. It illustrates how future work linking Indigenous literatures to modernism can and should be undertaken, particularly by non-Indigenous scholars. With deft and illuminating close readings, Long and Hayward convey the twists and turns—and reciprocal relationships—by which a genuinely local and significant literary culture emerged in Oceania. Stephen Ross, coeditor of The Routledge Handbook of North American Indigenous Modernisms.

We look forward to celebrating this important literary milestone with you!