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Popular imaginings of the Pacific Islands as earthly paradises or escapes for the weary have obscured the long historical reality of violence-cultural, physical, environmental and political-under the European and U.S. empires that sought out these islands of Oceania as one of the last frontiers. Today, islanders are writing back.
In "Decolonizing Culture in Pacific Literature" Susan Y. Najita proposes that the traumatic history of contact and colonization has become a crucial means by which indigenous peoples of Oceania are reclaiming their cultures, languages, ways of knowing, and political independence. In particular, she examines how contemporary writers from Hawai'i, Samoa, and Aotearoa/New Zealand remember, re-tell, and deploy this violent history in their work. As Pacific peoples negotiate their paths towards sovereignty and chart their postcolonial futures, these writers play an invaluable role in invoking and commenting upon the various uses of the histories of colonial resistance, allowing themselves and their readers to imagine new futures by exorcising the past.
"Decolonizing" "Culture in Pacific Literature" is a valuable addition to the fields of Pacific and Postcolonial Studies and also contributes to struggles for cultural decolonization in Oceania: contemporary writers' critical engagement with colonialism and indigenous culture, Najita argues, provides a powerful tool for navigating a decolonized future.