Maui, Spring 2018 ~ Read
Molokai by Alan Brennert would not be exactly considered a “beach read”, as it deals with a really difficult and graphic page in Hawaii’s history. In the late 1800s, early 1900s, the small island of Molokai, right off the coast of Maui, served as the location for a leprosy colony, and this book describes with beauty and compassion some of its inhabitants, as well as priests and nuns that supported the operations of the institution. I chose this book as one of prerequisites for my Maui trip because it helps a mindful traveler to appreciate the effects of American colonialism. Its inhumane policies largely affected the local population, and it is important that Hawaii isn’t viewed just as a playground for the rest of America, but its own place with a complex, pock-marked history of injustice and persecution towards its indigenous population.
This richly imagined novel, set in Hawai’i more than a century ago, is an extraordinary epic of a little-known time and place—and a deeply moving testament to the resiliency of the human spirit.
Rachel Kalama, a spirited seven-year-old Hawaiian girl, dreams of visiting far-off lands like her father, a merchant seaman. Then one day a rose-colored mark appears on her skin, and those dreams are stolen from her. Taken from her home and family, Rachel is sent to Kalaupapa, the quarantined leprosy settlement on the island of Moloka’i. Here her life is supposed to end—but instead she discovers it is only just beginning.
With a vibrant cast of vividly realized characters, Moloka’i is the true-to-life chronicle of a people who embraced life in the face of death. Such is the warmth, humor, and compassion of this novel that “few readers will remain unchanged by Rachel’s story” (mostlyfiction.com).
Shark Dialogues by Kiana Davenport is an incredibly rich, multi-layered story of four sisters hailing from Hawaii, at once recalled back to the islands by an all-powerful matriarch, Pono. It is written in my favorite genre of magical realism, so it deftly incorporates a lot of Hawaiian lore, mysticism and oral history into a narrative of one family’s complicated saga. Throughout the book, the reader meanders from a pineapple canning factory to a coffee plantation to the rich underwater worlds of the Hawaiian coastline, and back to the port and docks of Honolulu. You’ll follow the characters’ arc over a century worth of Hawaiian history, but it is not a dry lesson, because Davenport creates a magical, layered world, very reminiscent of Hawaii’s own lush, colorful, teeming landscape.
Find these books at your local booksellers or your local library.
