Albert Wendt

Profile
Poet, novelist, short story writer, playwright and anthologist, Albert Wendt has been an influential figure in New Zealand and Pacific literature since the 1970s. Well-known as a novelist, especially for his prize-winning family saga, Leaves of the Banyan Tree, Wendt explores in all his work the search for cultural identity in a changing world.

Selected published works
Sons for the Return Home, 1973; Flying Fox in a Freedom Tree, 1974; Poulili, 1977; Leaves of the Banyan Tree, 1979, Wattie Book Award 1980; Birth and Death of the Miracle Man, 1986; Ola, 1991, winner of the South East Asia and Pacific section of the Commonwealth Book Prize 1991; The Mango’s Kiss, 2003; The Songmaker's Chair (play), 2005.

Albert Wendt's poetry can be found here.

Biography
Albert Wendt was born in Samoa in 1939 of the Aiga Sa-Tuaopepe of Lefaga and the Aiga Sa-Patu of Vaiala. After primary schooling in Samoa, he attended New Plymouth Boys’ High School, Ardmore Teachers’ College and Victoria University of Wellington. He lived in New Zealand from 1953 to 1964 and again, in Auckland, from 1988 to 2004.

Wendt was principal of Samoa College in the 1960s. In 1974, he moved to Fiji to the University of the South Pacific, becoming, after a period at the Apia campus, Professor of Pacific Literature and Pro Vice-Chancellor. He was later Professor of English at the University of Auckland specialising in New Zealand and Pacific Literatures and Creative Writing. During his distinguished academic career in Samoa, Fiji and New Zealand, he also found time to publish six novels, several collections of short stories and poetry, articles on Pacific writing and art, and to edit three anthologies of Pacific writing.

Wendt has been a hugely influential figure in the shaping of New Zealand and Pacific literature since the 1970s and has won many honours acknowledging his role. In 1995 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Bourgoyne in France. He was made Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2001 for his Services to Literature, in 2003 was awarded the Senior Pacific Artists’ Award at the Arts Pasifika Awards and, in 2004, won the Nikkei Asia Prize for Culture. In 2006 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by Victoria University of Wellington.

Wendt’s collections of poems include The Book of the Black Star, Inside Us the Dead, Shaman of Visions, Photographs, all published by Auckland University Press. He edited Lali (1980), Nuanua: Pacific Writing in English Since 1980 (AUP, 1995) and was co-editor of Whetu Moana: Contemporary Polynesian Poetry in English, which won the Reference and Anthology Category at the 2004 Montana New Zealand Book Awards. His novels include Sons for the Return Home, Pouliuli, Leaves of the Banyan Tree (University of Hawai’i Press; 1980 Wattie Book of the Year) and Ola (University of Hawai’i Press; winner of the South East Asia and Pacific Section of the Commonwealth Book Prize 1991). The Mango’s Kiss was published in August 2003 by Vintage, Random House.

His first play, The Songmaker’s Chair, had its premiere at the 2003 Auckland Arts Festival (AK03) to critical acclaim. In 2004, Wendt took up the prestigious Citizens’ Chair at the University of Hawai’i.