Albert Wendt

Who is Albert Wendt?

Albert Wendt is a Samoan novelist, poet, and academic born in Apia in 1939, widely regarded as one of the most influential writers to emerge from the Pacific and a pioneering figure in postcolonial Pacific literature written in English. His major works include the novels Sons for the Return Home (1973), which was adapted into a feature film in 1979, Pouliuli (1977), Leaves of the Banyan Tree (1979), Ola (1991), and The Adventures of Vela (2009), alongside numerous poetry collections and edited anthologies that helped establish and canonize a distinct Pacific literary tradition. Leaves of the Banyan Tree won the New Zealand Wattie Book of the Year award in 1980, and The Adventures of Vela won the 2010 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for the Southeast Asia and South Pacific region, following an earlier Commonwealth Writers' Prize win in 1992. From 1988 to 2008 he was the first professor of New Zealand literature at the University of Auckland, mentoring generations of Pacific writers. In 2013 he was made a Member of the Order of New Zealand, the country's highest civilian honor, in recognition of his contribution to literature.

Sources: Albert Wendt — Wikipedia biographical summary · Academy of New Zealand Literature, author profile · Britannica, "Albert Wendt" biography