Albert Wendt

Albert Wendt ONZ CNZM
Wendt in 2013
Born	(1939-10-27) 27 October 1939 (age 81) Apia, Samoa[1]
Nationality	Samoan
Occupation	Academic
Known for	Author
Academic background
Education	New Plymouth Boys' High School[1]
Alma mater	Victoria University[1]
Academic work
Discipline	Pacific Literature
Sub-discipline	New Zealand Literature
Institutions	The University of Auckland, University of the South Pacific

Albert Tuaopepe Wendt ONZ CNZM (born 27 August 1939) is a Samoan poet and writer who lives in New Zealand. Among his works is Leaves of the Banyan Tree, published in 1979.

Biography[]

Albert Wendt was born in Apia, Samoa. He is of German heritage through his great-grandfather from his patrilineal ancestry. In 1988, Albert Wendt took up a professorship of English at the University of Auckland, the first per a professorial chair in New Zealand. In a 2002 interview, Wendt would describe his family heritage as "totally Samoan" even though he had a German surname, but did not explicitly deny his German heritage, which he has referenced in a number of his poetic works.^[2]

In 1952, Wendt was honoured with a scholarship to attend the New Plymouth Boys' School in New Zealand, from which he graduated.^[3] After this, he studied at Ardmore Teacher's College and at the Victoria University of Wellington, graduating with an M.A. in History. His Master's thesis was about the Mau, Samoa's independence movement from colonialism during the first decade of the 1900s. His thesis was entitled Guardians and Wards: A study of the origins, causes and the first two years of the Mau in Western Samoa.^[4]

Wendt returned in 1965 to Samoa, becoming headmaster of Samoa College. In 1974 he moved to Fiji, where he taught at the University of the South Pacific. There, he worked closely with the literary journal Mana, and edited in 1975 collections of poems from Fiji, Samoa, the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu), and the Solomon Islands. In 1977 Wendt returned home to set up the University of the South Pacific Center in Samoa.

Wendt's epic Leaves of the Banyan Tree (1979) won the 1980 New Zealand Book Awards. He was appointed to the first chair in Pacific literature at the University of the South Pacific in Suva. In 1988, he took up a professorship of Pacific studies at the University of Auckland. In 1999, Wendt was visiting Professor of Asian and Pacific Studies at the University of Hawaii. In the 2001 New Year Honours, he was appointed a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to literature.^[5] In the 2013 Queen's Birthday Honours, he was appointed a member of the Order of New Zealand.^[6]

Poetry by Wendt was included in UPU, 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.^[7] UPU was remounted as part of the Kia Mau Festival in Wellington in June 2021.^[8]

Documentary[]

Wendt is the subject of a documentary, The New Oceania, made in New Zealand by Point of View Productions. Directed by Shirley Horrocks, the film screened at the New Zealand International Film Festival and Hawaii International Film Festival in 2005, TVNZ 2006 and ABC Australia in 2007.^[9]

Awards and honours[]

• 1980 – Wattie Book of the Year for Leaves of the Banyan Tree.^[10]
• 1992 – Commonwealth Writers Prize in the Asia-Pacific Region for Ola.^[10]
• 1994 – Order of Merit of Samoa for services to education and literature.^[10]
• 2001 – Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to literature.^[10]
• 2003 – Senior Pacific Arts Award, Arts Pasifika Awards^[10]
• 2004 – Nikkei Asia Prize for Culture.^[10]
• 2004 – Montana Book Award for Whetu Moana.^[10]
• 2010 – Commonwealth Writers Prize in the Asia-Pacific Region for The Adventures of Vela.^[11]
• 2012 – Prime Minister's Awards for Literary Achievement in Fiction.^[12]
• 2013 – Order of New Zealand.^[10]
• 2018 - Icon Award from the New Zealand Arts Foundation.^[13]

Works[]

• Comes the Revolution (1972)
• The Contract (1972)
• Sons for the Return Home (1973). ISBN 0-582-71718-3, ISBN 0-8248-1796-6 – also made into feature film
• Flying Fox in a Freedom Tree: And Other Stories (1974). ISBN 0-582-71733-7, ISBN 0-582-71734-5 (pbk.) – also made into feature film
• Inside Us the Dead. Poems 1961 to 1974 (1976). ISBN 0-582-71750-7
• Pouliuli (1977). Novel. ISBN 0-582-71754-X, ISBN 0-8248-0728-6
• Leaves of the Banyan Tree (1979). Novel. ISBN 0-582-71770-1, ISBN 0-385-17858-1 ; French translation Les feuilles du banian by Jean-Pierre Durix, éditions , 2009.
• Lali: A Pacific Anthology (edited; 1980). ISBN 0-582-71772-8
• Shaman of Visions (1984)
• The Birth and Death of the Miracle Man (1986). Stories. ISBN 0-670-80676-5
• Ola (1991). Novel ISBN 0-14-015763-8, ISBN 0-8248-1585-8
• Black Rainbow (1992). ISBN 0-14-016693-9, ISBN 0-8248-1586-6
• Nuanua: Pacific Writing in English since 1980 (edited; 1995). ISBN 0-8248-1731-1
• Photographs (1995). Poems. ISBN 1-86940-122-0
• The Best of Albert Wendt's Short Stories (1999). ISBN 1-86941-392-X
• The Book of the Black Star (2002). ISBN 1-86940-283-9
• Whetu Moana: A Collection of Pacific Poems (edited; 2002). ISBN 0-8248-2756-2
• The Mango's Kiss: a Novel (2003). ISBN 1-86941-580-9 ; French translation Le baiser de la mangue [1] by Jean-Pierre Durix, éditions , 2006.
• The Songmaker's Chair (2004). Drama. ISBN 1-86969-031-1
• The Adventures of Vela (2009). ISBN 1-86969-363-9
• Ancestry (2012). Stories. ISBN 978-1775500377
• From Mānoa to a Ponsonby Garden (2012). Poems. ISBN 978 1 86940 734 6
• Out of the Vaipe, The Deadwater: A Writer's Early Life (2015). Memoir. ISBN 9780908321223
• Breaking Connections (2015). Novel. ISBN 9781775502104 ; French translation by Jean-Pierre Durix, éditions , 2018.

Bibliography[]

• Patke, Rajiv Shridkar, Postcolonial Poetry in English: Oxford studies in Postcolonial Literatures in English, Oxford University Press, 2006, ISBN 0-19-929888-2

References[]

External links[]

• The New Oceania film
• "Inside Us The Dead"
• Wendt reading "Inside Us The Dead"
• "Stepping Stones", published in Poetry Magazine, February 2018