10/22/2024
It hasn't really been so long since Kiana Davenport changed the literary landscape of Hawai‘i with SHARK DIALOGUES, published in 1994. She introduced readers both inside and outside the Islands to an unfamiliar, multi-braided, international-inflected, female- and kanaka-centered storyline emanating from under the volcano's peak that dominates the Big Island.
It was a hit for all the right reasons. Best of all, for writers from and of Hawai‘i, SHARK DIALOGUES and its sequels, SONG OF EXILES (1999) and the bestseller HOUSE OF MANY GODS (2006), felt liberating. They said: Go ahead. From here you can write about anything, your way, obeying no one's guardrails, relying on your own experience and vision.
Davenport's novels gave writers room. They showed modern local life here and abroad. Trapped in timeless Hilo, a reader could see herself in Paris, Shanghai, New York. I can go there, too. In words as in life. And yet, big as they are, the books are grounded in people, recognizable characters of the Big Island, Nānākuli, Kalihi, China, and Korea, their matriarchs and mixed-race children. People who, no matter how far they've strayed, or how deep they've sunk, know they still do have a home here (however traumatic the thought) in Hawai‘i.
SNOWS OF MAUNA KEA, Davenport’s fourth novel in the series, is finally almost here. The title of course echoes the famous Ernest Hemingway short story—the one with the famous line about the carcass of a frozen leopard found near the 19,000-foot summit of Kenya's holy mountain, "The House of the Gods," Kilimanjaro. Davenport's wry wit is apparent in her sly transplanting of Kilimanjaro to Mauna Kea, another holy mountain brooding above a land traduced by colonialism, violated by thrill-seekers.
SNOWS OF MAUNA KEA is Davenport's great hike to the summit. To keep her company as she prepares the final version of the manuscript, bucking the current climate for smaller stories, fewer characters, less glory, let's savor this first taste and cheer her on.
Read a preview of SNOWS OF MAUNA KEA, and more, in The Hawaiʻi Review of Books: https://hawaiireviewofbooks.com/stories/snows-of-mauna-kea