Sons for the Return Home (Talanoa: Contemporary Pacific Literature, 11) - Softcover

Wendt, Albert

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0824817966 ISBN 13: 9780824817961

Publisher: University of Hawaii Press, 1996

Synopsis

Originally published in 1973, this story of star-crossed lovers spotlights the complex nature of love, freedom, and racism in New Zealand. Samoan writer Albert Wendt's first novel, Sons for the Return Home, has long been out of print. Yet, readers continue to respond to the clarity of vision in this simple, powerful story of cross-cultural encounter.

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

The two loversboth university studentsin this novel face many cultural difficulties. She is a white New Zealander, blonde, outgoing, daughter of a successful businessman; he is the son of xenophobic Somoan immigrants to New Zealand, dark, reticent and bitter about his tenuous position as a "coconut islander" in white society. Indeed, this is also the story of two conflicting South Pacific nationsNew Zealand and Samoawhose inhabitants tend to translate racial pride into racist contempt for others. Told in the flat, passionless voice of the nameless boy, this allegory, rich in both history and geographic detail, demonstrates the problems of cultural cohabitation. Though his writing is slightly uneven and too often cliched, Wendt, a native Samoan and professor of literature, offers a fine, compassionate tale.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0824817966
• ISBN 13: 9780824817961
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224