Postcolonial Pacific Writing: Representations of the Body

In this major new interdisciplinary study, Michelle Keown examines representations of the body in the work of eight of Polynesia's most significant contemporary writers. Exploring inter-connections between postcolonial studies and disciplines including anthropology, psychoanalysis, history and medicine, Postcolonial Pacific Writing develops an innovative framework specific to the literatures and cultures of the Pacific. An introductory chapter outlining trends and developments in Pacific literature since the 1970s is followed by chapters on individual writers. These include Albert Wendt (Samoa), Sia Figiel (Samoa), Epeli Hau'ofa (Tonga), Alistair Campbell (Cook Islands), and Keri Hulme, Witi Ihimaera, Patricia Grace and Alan Duff (New Zealand Maori). The book examines the cultural and literary affiliations between these writers, while also demonstrating the very different results of their ongoing relationships with colonial forces in their representations of the corporeal. Drawing on examplesand contexts as wide ranging as Judith Butler, Frantz Fanon and contemporary gang culture, Postcolonial Pacific Writing is a thoroughly researched and rigorous exploration of an intriguing field of study.

Michelle Keown is Lecturer in Colonial and Postcolonial Literatures at the University of Stirling.