A Paradise Lost - KOPS - Universität Konstanz

as much an “India of the mind” as it is the multi-layered and multi-voiced representation
of a place with a turbulent history, rooted and fixed in space and time, brought into being
on the map of literature. The theoretical approaches which have so far been reviewed will
be applied to Hawaii’s literature, highlighting both the uniqueness of Hawaii’s situation
and resultant culture(s), as well as the connections with other places and modes of
thought.
Will someone please tell us what it is about the literature of these islands that makes it so different from
other literatures and still worthy of the name, so that we can get back on course and under way?
Michael McPherson – “Leaving without the Sail: Local Literature and the English Language” 116
3. Mirrors and Looking Glasses: Areas of Comparison
Next, three literary ‘regions’ will be introduced to shed light on Hawaiian matters and to
contextualize the islands, each in turn used to highlight specific issues:
- The Caribbean has not only been theorized extensively, but also reveals interesting
parallels to Hawai’i on various levels. Hence, the invocation of those other islands links
Hawai’i to one of the wellsprings of postcolonial theory and literature. A Caribbean angle
can shed light on Hawaiian hybridity, the significance of Pidgin and the idea of the Local.
- The South Pacific hosts the ancestors and ethno-cultural relatives of the native
Hawaiian people. Their histories and independence struggles, their cultures and literatures
are similar and connected to Hawaiian issues. A recent revitalization of cross-Pacific ties
necessitates some knowledge of a wider Oceania. The South Pacific perspective
illuminates orality and genealogy, the cultural renaissance and sovereignty movements,
and, with the pan-Pacific efforts of writers and scholars such as Albert Wendt from
Samoa, Subramani from Fiji, the Papuan Epeli Hau’ofa, and Vilsoni Hereniko from
Rotuma, provides a larger home for Local literature.
- Asian America obviously extends to the islands, but in the past, Asian American
studies have tended to either incorporate or ignore Hawaii’s Asian writers, although the
116 Michael McPherson, “Leaving without the Sail: Local Literature and the English Language,” in Hawaii
Literary Arts Council Newsletter 19, Nos. 13-14 (February 1982); quoted in Richard Hamasaki, Singing in
their Genealogical Trees: The Emergence of Contemporary Hawaiian Poetry in English: Dana Naone
Hall, Wayne Kaumuali’i Westlake, Joseph P. Balaz, Honolulu 1989: 38.
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