Marjorie Edel Reading Series: Albert Wendt

Majorie Putnam Sinclair Edel Reading Series presents Albert Wendt

"The Adventures of Vela: Writing a Novel in Verse" (book-signing to follow presentation).

Albert Wendt, who will be receiving an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from the University of Hawai‘i on May 16, will be reading from his latest novel, The Adventures of Vela and talking about how he wrote this novel over nearly the whole of his writing life, and the “adventure” he had in completing it. The novel is a Pacific epic that stretches from hundreds of years before the arrival of Papalagi to the present day and uses the great indigenous oral traditions of storytelling and Western poetry. Vela, the main character, is a poet, songmaker and chronicler, who tells his life to a modern poet, Alapati, who writes it down. He will also be reading from some of the poems he has completed since returning to Aotearoa/New Zealand in mid-2008 from Hawai‘i, where he was Citizens’ Professor of English at UHM from 2004 through 2008.

Novelist, short-story writer, poet, playwright, and scholar, Albert Wendt has been internationally recognized as one of the great writers of the Pacific ever since his novel Sons for the Return Home (later a feature film) was published in 1973.

This reading is the fourth public event in The Marjorie Putnam Sinclair Edel Reading Series, which honors the memory of poet, novelist, biographer, and teacher Marjorie Edel (1913–2005) and her lasting contributions to Hawai‘i’s and the University’s literary communities from 1935 into the twenty-first century.

This event is co-sponsored by the UHM Department of English; the College of Languages, Linguistics and Literature; the Center for Pacific Islands Studies; and the Hawai‘inuiākea School of Hawaiian Learning.

Event Sponsor
English Department, Manoa Campus

More Information
Mark Heberle, 808-956-3088, heberle@hawaii.edu, wendt_edel_flyer.pdf (PDF)

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