Albert Wendt | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Wendt in 2013 | |
| Born | (1939-10-27)27 October 1939 (age 85) |
| Nationality | Samoan |
| Occupations |
|
| Partner | Reina Whaitiri |
| Awards | Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement (2012) Icon Award (2018) |
| Academic background | |
| Education | New Plymouth Boys' High School |
| Alma mater | Victoria University |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline |
|
| Institutions | The University of Auckland,University of the South Pacific |
| Notable works | Sons for the Return Home (1973) Leaves of the Banyan Tree (1979) |
Albert Tuaopepe WendtONZ CNZM (born 27 October 1939) is a Samoan poet and writer who lives inNew Zealand. He is one of the most influential writers inOceania. His notable works includeSons for the Return Home, published in 1973 (adapted into a feature film in 1979), andLeaves of the Banyan Tree, published in 1979. As an academic he has taught at universities in Samoa, Fiji, Hawaii and New Zealand, and from 1988 to 2008 was the professor of New Zealand literature at theUniversity of Auckland.
Wendt is the recipient of many prestigious awards, including twice receiving theCommonwealth Writers Prize for the Asia-Pacific region, multiple top awards at theNew Zealand Book Awards, the 2012Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement in Fiction and anIcon Award from theArts Foundation of New Zealand in 2018. In 2013 he was appointed a member of theOrder of New Zealand, New Zealand's highest civilian honour, recognising his pivotal role in the formation of Pacific literature in English.
Wendt was born inApia,Western Samoa (now known as Samoa) in 1939, and lived in Samoa as a child.[1][2] He was one of nine children, and his father was a plumber.[3] He is of German heritage through his great-grandfather on his father's side, but in 2002 said he considered his family heritage to be "totally Samoan".[4] In 1952, Wendt received a scholarship to attendNew Plymouth Boys' High School in New Zealand. He graduated in 1957.[5] During his time at the school he had a couple of poems and a short story published in the school's annual magazine,The Taranakian.[6]
He completed a diploma of teaching at Ardmore Teachers' College in 1959, and subsequently attendedVictoria University of Wellington, graduating with a Master of Arts in History in 1964.[5] His Master's thesis was about theMau, Samoa's independence movement fromcolonialism during the first decade of the 1900s.[7] He began to publish work in literary magazines, including theNew Zealand School Journal, theNew Zealand Listener, andLandfall while attending Victoria University.[4][6] In 1963, he received an award fromLandfall for the best prose by a writer under the age of 25, for his short story "The Name of the Game".[8] He has said that at the time he started writing, he was inspired by the examples ofAlistair Te Ariki Campbell,Jacquie Sturm andHone Tuwhare, who were then the only well-known Polynesian writers in New Zealand.[4]
In 1965 Wendt returned to Samoa and became the headmaster ofSamoa College.[5] He continued to send poems and short stories back to New Zealand for publication in magazines, and in 1972 he wrote two plays:Comes the Revolution, performed at the South Pacific Arts Festival, andThe Contract, performed at the School's Drama Festival in Apia.[6] He began working on the epic novelLeaves of the Banyan Tree around this time, but due to its length, put it aside and finished the novelSons for the Return Home first, which was published in 1973.[4] It described the experiences of a young Samoan man in New Zealand,[9] and in 1979 was adapted into a feature film directed byPaul Maunder, which was the first film focusing on the experiences of Pacific people in New Zealand.[10]
In 1974 Wendt was appointed a senior lecturer at theUniversity of the South Pacific, and worked both inSuva and at its Samoan centre.[5][1][2] There, he published a number of articles in the literary journalMana (including works examining the impact of colonialism on Pacific arts and culture) and edited collections of poems from Fiji, Samoa, theNew Hebrides (nowVanuatu), and theSolomon Islands.[1][2][11] In 1974 he published a collection of short stories, in the style of modern-dayfables, titledFlying Fox in a Freedom Tree.[12] Two stories from the collection were adapted into a feature film of the same name directed byMartyn Sanderson in 1989.[13] His first poetry collection,Inside Us the Dead: Poems 1961 to 1974, was published in 1976, and a novella,Pouliuli (translated as "darkness"), was published in 1977.[1][2]
Wendt's epic family sagaLeaves of the Banyan Tree (1979) won first place at the 1980Goodman Fielder Wattie Book Awards.[1][2][12][14] In 1980 he was the editor ofLali, an anthology of Pacific writing. From 1982 to 1987 he was the professor of Pacific literature at the University of the South Pacific,[5] and was also appointed to the position of pro-vice-chancellor.[1][2]
In 1988 he was appointed as the first professor of New Zealand literature at theUniversity of Auckland.[1][2][12] He was the first Pacific Islander to be appointed as an English professor at the university.[15] In his later career he edited important anthologies of Pacific writing includingNuanua (1995),[1][2]Whetu Moana: Contemporary Polynesian Poems in English (2003) (withReina Whaitiri andRobert Sullivan) andMauri Ola: Contemporary Polynesian Poems in English – Whetu Moana II (2010) (with Whaitiri and Sullivan).Whetu Moana was awarded the Montana Award for Reference and Anthology at the 2004Montana New Zealand Book Awards, and was the first anthology of modern Polynesian poetry in English to have Polynesian editors.[2] Its successorMauri Ora was a finalist in the Poetry category at the 2011New Zealand Post Book Awards.[2]
Wendt's later works include poetry collectionsShaman of Visions (1984) andPhotographs (1995), and short story collectionIn The Birth and Death of the Miracle Man (1986), both of which feature works set in Samoa. The novelOla (1991) features a female protagonist travelling around the world and themes of religious faith and identity,[1][2][12] and won the 1992Commonwealth Writers Prize for the Asia-Pacific Region.[16]Black Rainbow (1992) is described by Wendt as an "allegorical thriller", and featured a dystopian future New Zealand.[1][2][12] In 1994 he was appointed to theOrder of Merit of Samoa for his services to education and literature.[16]
In 1999, he was the visiting Professor of Asian and Pacific Studies at theUniversity of Hawaiʻi.[17] In 2000 he delivered the New Zealand Book Council lecture, titledLe Vaipe: the Dead Water.[1][2] In the2001 New Year Honours, he was appointed aCompanion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to literature.[18] He received the Senior Pacific Islands Artist's Award at the 2003Arts Pasifika Awards,[19] and his first playThe Songmaker's Chair premiered that year.[20] In 2004 he was awarded theNikkei Asia Prize for Culture.[2] In 2005, Victoria University made him an honoraryDoctor of Literature.[2] From 2004 to 2008 he held the position of Citizen's Chair at the University of Hawaiʻi.[15]
He retired from his university professorship in 2008.[15] In 2009, his verse novelThe Adventures of Vela was published, which he had begun writing in the 1970s; extracts had earlier been included in the collectionPhotographs (1995).[2] He won his secondCommonwealth Writers Prize in the Asia-Pacific Region for this work.[2][16] In the same year he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from the University of Hawaiʻi.[2][15] In 2012, he was presented with thePrime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement for Fiction, worthNZ$60,000,[2] and that same year hisʻaiga, ʻAiga Sa-Maualaivao, granted him their highest title of Maualaivao in a Samoan ceremony.[21][22] In the2013 Queen's Birthday Honours, he was appointed a member of theOrder of New Zealand, New Zealand's highest civilian honour.[23]
He became a patron of theNew Zealand Book Council in 2015.[2] Later that year, he published a memoir,Out of the Vaipe, the Deadwater, about his early life in Apia, and a novel,Breaking Connections, about a group of friends and their life in Auckland.[2] In 2018 he was recognised as one of New Zealand's greatest twenty living artists and presented with anIcon Award by theArts Foundation of New Zealand.[24] Poetry by Wendt was included inUPU, a curation of Pacific Island writers' work which was first presented at the Silo Theatre as part of the Auckland Arts Festival in March 2020.[25]UPU was remounted as part of theKia Mau Festival in Wellington in June 2021.[26]
Throughout his career Wendt has been a leader inpostcolonial literature.[1][2][15] His works have been published widely internationally and translated into French, Chinese, German, Dutch and Japanese.[21] The first notable study of his work was published in 2003, byPaul Sherrad, titledAlbert Wendt and Pacific Literature: Circling the Void.[2] New Zealand scholarLydia Wevers said that Wendt's works "have been instrumental in shaping a Pacific literature in English, especially in its evolution from oral to written form".[9] In addition to his own works, of which the most well-known isSons for the Return Home (1973), Wendt has played a wider role in shaping the cultural life of Oceania; writersTeresia Teaiwa andSelina Tusitala Marsh noted, in an introduction to a special 2010 issue ofThe Contemporary Pacific focussing on Wendt's legacy:[15]
Without a doubt, there are a number of Wendt’s contemporaries who, like him, have created invaluable legacies to inspire challenge thinking in, of, and about the Pacific— or Oceania. But in crucial ways, Wendt is an unparalleled figure in our region.
He is the subject of a documentary,The New Oceania, made in New Zealand by Point of View Productions. Directed byShirley Horrocks, the film screened at theNew Zealand International Film Festival andHawaii International Film Festival in 2005, onTVNZ in 2006 and onABC Australia in 2007.[27][28]
As a young teacher, Wendt married Jenny Whyte, and they had two daughters and a son.[29][30] One of his daughters, Mele Wendt, was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to governance in the2019 New Year Honours.[31]
Wendt has been in a relationship with his partner, Reina Whaitiri, since his marriage ended in the early 1990s.[29][32][33] He is a cousin of actorNathaniel Lees, who directed and starred in Wendt's playThe Songmaker's Chair at the 2003Auckland Arts Festival.[3] His nieceLani Wendt Young is also a writer.[34]
Novels, short story collections and memoirs
Poetry collections
Plays
Anthologies and other edited works
