A Paradise Lost - KOPS - Universität Konstanz

distributing books related to Hawai’i, Asia, and the Pacific, despite severe limitations in
its first decades of existence. Founded in 1947, the press struggled with printing laws and
with not being allowed to retain revenues until the 1970s, “the decade in which the press
established itself as the leading publisher of Hawaiiana and as a major publisher of books
on Asia.” 214 Key publications still in print are Elbert and Pukui’s Hawaiian-English
Dictionary, the 1973 Atlas of Hawaii, revised in 1994, Beckwith’s Hawaiian Mythology
and The Kumulipo, and Daws’ authoritative Shoal of Time: A History of the Hawaiian
Islands. Projects such as widely used Japanese language textbooks generated income that
has enabled the publication of “important, but economically risky, scholarly works that
otherwise would not have seen the light of day.” 215 The financial situation also allowed
for the automation of production in the 1980s, which in turn engendered a production-
service program that has turned the press into a logistics company serving university,
community, and nonprofit organizations (such as Bamboo Ridge) as well as small
educational publishers from Pacific Rim countries. The creation of two new literature
series in 1993 marked an increased commitment to the wider distribution of ex-centric
literatures: “One series presents in English translation outstanding fiction of this century
from China. The second, Talanoa: Contemporary Pacific Literature, presents the fiction
of indigenous Pacific Islanders.” 216 Editor of the latter is Vilsoni Hereniko. The inception
of this series can be seen as the attempt to establish a new, pan-Pacific canon.
214 Kamins/Potter 1998: 237.
215 Ibid.: 238.
216 Ibid.: 240.
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