Rodney Morales | |
|---|---|
| Occupation | Novelist, professor |
| Genre | Literature in Hawaii |
| Notable works | The Speed of Darkness, When the Shark Bites |
Rodney Morales is an American fiction writer, editor, literary scholar, musician, and Professor in the Creative Writing Program of the Department of English at the University of Hawaii. In both his creative and critical writing, he is concerned with contemporary multi-ethnic Hawaii society, particularly social relations between its residents of Native Hawaiian, Japanese, Caucasian, and Puerto Rican descent; the 1970s "Hawaiian Renaissance" movement and the disappearance of its legendary cultural icon George Helm of Protect Kaho'olawe Ohana (PKO); and the postmodern juxtaposition of popular artistic forms (the detective novel, cinema, crime fiction, rock music) with high literature. [1] Shaped by genre fiction of the postwar period, his regional stories influenced that of Generation X/millennial authors such as Chris McKinney and Alexei Melnick, [2] "urban Honolulu" novelists known for their gritty, realistic approaches to depicting crime, drugs, and lower-class life in the islands.
Though he had authored earlier works of short fiction, Morales first came to notice on the Hawai`i literary scene when he edited Ho`i Ho`i Hou: A Tribute to George Helm and Kimo Mitchell, for Bamboo Ridge Press (1984). During the post-Statehood period from the 1960s through the 1990s, in Hawai`i publishing circles and English classes, "local" literature of the islands had been largely limited to, first, European American fiction and poetry by or about haole residents of Hawai`i, and, later, "pidgin" (Hawai`i Creole English) literature set in Hawai`i, largely by or about Asian immigrants and their descendants. [3] Morales, along with fellow writer-editors Richard Hamasaki [4] and Dennis Kawaharada, [5] were key figures in the "local literature" movement who actively promoted Native Hawaiian writing and storytelling in the late twentieth-century, publishing community.
Morales wrote his first novel, When the Shark Bites (2002), over a six-year period. He drew from actual events in Hawaii social and political history—such as the suspicious vanishing of Helm and fellow Native Hawaiian activist Kimo Mitchell in the late 1970s, and the Hawaiian sovereignty movement which exploded by the 1990s—blending known, local figures into fictionalized characters within a multiple-perspective, mystery/crime genre story. Literary scholar Susan Najita found similarities in the book's thematic content with the writer's collection of short stories (The Speed of Darkness, 1988), calling the millennial novel "an extension of this earlier work in both its fictionalization of the events following Helm's disappearance and in Morales's deft interweaving of history, colonial resistance movements, popular culture, and native Hawaiian tradition." [6] When the Shark Bites is a modern-day detective story in which an indigenous Hawaiian doctoral student, Alika, investigates the mysterious disappearance of native Hawaiian activist Keoni in the late 1970s. Morales has said of the technique of combining regional history with mainstream genre fiction, "A novel is a way to bring in all the different worlds I know." [7]
His second novel, For A Song (2016), blends noir, mystery, and detective-fiction genre tropes, against the backdrop of political scandal and police corruption in contemporary Honolulu. [8] Morales' protagonist, the hard-boiled detective David "Kawika" Apana, is consulted by a Native Hawaiian, female activist and filmmaker, whose case sends him from urban Honolulu to the semi-rural windward and north coasts of O`ahu island, into the shadier, complex layers of Hawaii society about which few know and fewer even dare speak. Morales has given public talks about how he uses local Hawaii, historical, archival, and news/journalistic research to breathe life into his characters. [9]
Morales won the prestigious Grand Prize of the Honolulu Magazine Fiction Contest twice. [10] In 2004, he was selected for the "established writer" category of the Cades Award for Literature, one of two key literary honors offered by the Hawai'i Literary Arts Council. [11]
Hawaiian literature has its origins in Polynesian mythology. It was originally preserved and expanded solely through oral traditions, as the ancient Hawaiians never developed a writing system. Written literature in the Hawaiian language and literary works in other languages by authors resident in Hawaii did not appear until the nineteenth century, when the arrival of American missionaries introduced the English language, the Latin alphabet, and Western notions of composition to the kingdom.
Puerto Rican migration to Hawaii began when Puerto Rico's sugar industry was devastated by two hurricanes in 1899. The devastation caused a worldwide shortage in sugar and a huge demand for the product from Hawaii. Consequently, Hawaiian sugarcane plantation owners began to recruit the jobless, but experienced, laborers in Puerto Rico.
Judith Ortiz Cofer was a Puerto Rican author. Her critically acclaimed and award-winning work spans a range of literary genres including poetry, short stories, autobiography, essays, and young-adult fiction. Ortiz Cofer was the Emeritus Regents' and Franklin Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Georgia, where she taught undergraduate and graduate creative writing workshops for 26 years. In 2010, Ortiz Cofer was inducted into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame, and in 2013, she won the University's 2014 Southeastern Conference Faculty Achievement Award.
George Jarrett Helm Jr. was a Native Hawaiian activist and musician from Kalamaʻula, Molokaʻi, Hawaii. He graduated from St. Louis High School on Oʻahu, about which he said, "I came to Honolulu to get educated. Instead I lost my innocence." While at St. Louis, he studied under Hawaiian cultural expert John Keola Lake, and Kahauanu Lake. George achieved mastery in vocal performance and guitar.
Kirby Michael Wright is an American writer best known for his 2005 coming-of-age island novel Punahou Blues and the epic novel Moloka'i Nui Ahina, which is based on the life and times of Wright's paniolo grandmother. Both novels deal with the racial tensions between haoles (whites) and the indigenous Hawaiians, and illustrate the challenge for characters who, as the product of mixed-race marriages, must try to bridge the two cultures and overcome prejudice from both camps. Wright has ventured into the genre of creative nonfiction in 2019 with The Queen of Moloka'i, which explores the teenage years of his part-Hawaiian grandmother and documents the Wright family saga in the islands.
Bamboo Ridge is a Hawaii-based literary journal and nonprofit press. It was founded in 1978 by Eric Chock and Darrell H.Y. Lum to publish works by and for the people of Hawaii. In the United States, Bamboo Ridge is one of the longest-running small presses, and is one of the oldest in Hawaii. It was named after a popular fishing spot on Oahu. It currently publishes two volumes a year: a literary journal of poetry and fiction featuring work by both emerging and established writers and a book by a single author or an anthology focused on a special theme. Both the journal and book are available singly or by subscription.
Milton Atsushi Murayama was an American novelist and playwright. A Nisei, he wrote the 1975 novel All I Asking for Is My Body, which is considered a classic novel of the experiences of Japanese Americans in Hawaii before and during World War II.
Pam Chun is a writer and marketing consultant, most notable as the author of the book The Money Dragon.
Oswald Andrew Bushnell was a microbiologist, historian, novelist, and professor at the University of Hawaiʻi.
Nora Okja Keller is a Korean American author. Her 1997 breakthrough work of fiction, Comfort Woman, and her second book (2002), Fox Girl, focus on multigenerational trauma resulting from Korean women's experiences as sex slaves, euphemistically called comfort women, for Japanese and American troops during World War II and the ongoing Korean War.
James Wilder “Kimo” McVay was an American musician turned talent manager, who successfully promoted Hawaiian entertainment acts. McVay promoted and managed acts such as teenage heartthrob Robin Luke, Don Ho, John Rowles, comic Andy Bumatai, Keolo and Kapono Beamer, ventriloquist Freddie Morris, magician John Hirokawa and many others.
Walter Ritte Jr. is a Native Hawaiian activist and educator from Ho‘olehua, Moloka‘i, Hawai‘i. He began his activism as one of the "Kaho‘olawe Nine," a group of activists who were the first to land on the island of Kaho‘olawe in January 1976 in opposition to the military bombing that was then taking place on the island. Other occupations took place and Ritte, along with Richard Sawyer, occupied and stayed hidden on the island for 35 days, an act which led to his arrest and brief imprisonment. The island was eventually returned to the State of Hawai‘i.
Eric Chock is a Hawaiian poet, scholar and editor. He served as a professor of English and humanities at the University of Hawaii-West Oahu, and coordinated the state's "Poets in the Schools" program for more than twenty years.
Ian T. MacMillan was a Hawaii-based scholar and novelist. From 1966 to 2008 he was a professor of English at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. The author of eight novels and six short story collections, MacMillan founded the literary journal Hawaii Review in 1973. Beginning in 1992, he also served as the fiction editor for Manoa: A Pacific Journal of International Writing. His work was anthologized in The Best American Short Stories and The Best of Triquarterly.
Kapulani Landgraf is a Kanaka Maoli artist who is best known for her work in black-and-white photography. Through a series of photographic essays, objects, and installations, Landgraf celebrates Native Hawaiian culture while also addressing the legacies of colonialism and its impact on indigenous Hawaiian rights, value and history. While her work often centers on the negative impacts of land use and development, she also alludes to the resilience of the land and the indigenous population. Landgraf says about her work, "Although much of my work laments the violations on the Hawaiian people, land and natural resources, it also offers hope with allusions to the strength and resilience of Hawaiian land and its people.” Landgraf's most recent work combines photographic series with objects and installations.
Dennis Chun is an American actor. He is the son of Hawaii Five-O star Kam Fong Chun, and portrayed Sgt. Duke Lukela in the reboot of the series, in which his father was known for playing Chin Ho Kelly from the original show.
John Dominis Holt IV was a Native Hawaiian writer, poet and cultural historian. In 1979, he was recognized as a Living Treasures of Hawaiʻi for his contribution to the Hawaiian Renaissance.
Cachi Cachi music, also spelled Kachi Kachi, Kachi-Kachi and Katchi-Katchi, is a term that was coined to refer to music played by Puerto Ricans in Hawaii, after they migrated to Hawaii in 1901.
Lisa Linn Kanae is an English professor at Kapiʻolani Community College and is best known for her poetry and short stories written in Pidgin.
Jose Luis Torres-Padilla, also known by his pen name J. L. Torres, is a Puerto Rican and American fiction writer, poet, literary scholar, critic and editor. He was born in Cayey, Puerto Rico and grew up in the South Bronx. His work focuses on diasporic Puerto Rican literature and culture. He is married and has two sons.
| General | |
|---|---|
| National libraries | |
| Other | |
