{"schema_version":"bf_book_companion_v1","release_id":"20260417T232332Z","book":{"amazon_purchase_url":"https://www.amazon.com/dp/0231217455?tag=bookfrontier-20","asin":"0231217455","authors":["Matthew Hayward","Maebh Long"],"book_id":"9780231217453","canonical_url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/the-rise-of-pacific-literature-0231217455","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780231217453.jpg?v=20260417T232332Z%3A2026-04-17T23%3A23%3A32Z","description":"Winner, 2025 Modernist Studies Association Book Prize Winner, 2025 Choice Outstanding Academic Title Shortlisted, 2025 Literary Encyclopedia Book Prize In the 1960s and 1970s, the staff and students of two newly founded universities in the Pacific Islands helped foster a golden age of Oceanian literature. At the University of Papua New Guinea and the University of the South Pacific, bold experiments in curriculum design recentered literary studies around a Pacific modernity. Rejecting the established British colonial model, writer-scholars placed Pacific oratory and a growing body of Oceanian writing at the heart of the syllabus. From this local core, students ventured outward to contemporary postcolonial literatures, where they saw modernist techniques repurposed for a decolonizing world. Only then did they turn to foundational modernist texts, encountered at last as a set of creative tools rather than a canon to be copied or learned by rote. The Rise of Pacific Literature reveals the transformative role and radical adaptations of global modernisms in this golden age. Maebh Long and Matthew Hayward examine the reading and teaching of Pacific oral narratives, European and American modernisms, and African, Caribbean, and Indian literature, tracing how Oceanian writers appropriated and reworked key texts and techniques. They identify the local innovations and international networks that spurred Pacific literature’s golden age by reading crucial works against the poetry, prose, and plays on the syllabi of the new universities. Placing internationally recognized writers such as Albert Wendt, Subramani, Konai Helu Thaman, Marjorie Crocombe, and John Kasaipwalova alongside lesser-known authors of works published in Oceanian little magazines, this book offers a wide-ranging new account of Pacific literary history that tells a fresh story about modernism’s global itineraries and transformations.","forthcoming":false,"isbn13":"9780231217453","publication_date":"20240903","publisher":"Columbia University Press","slug":"the-rise-of-pacific-literature","subtitle":"Decolonization, Radical Campuses, and Modernism","title":"The Rise of Pacific Literature"},"discovery":{"categories":{"all":[{"bisac_code":"LIT025060","confidence_band":"high","label":"Race & Culture in Literature","score":0.825,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"LIT004070","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Australian & Pacific Lit Crit","score":0.7719,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"LIT024050","confidence_band":"medium","label":"20th-Century Literary Criticism","score":0.7467,"source":"bisac_hint_model"}],"hint":[{"bisac_code":"LIT025060","confidence_band":"high","label":"Race & Culture in Literature","score":0.825,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"LIT004070","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Australian & Pacific Lit Crit","score":0.7719,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"LIT024050","confidence_band":"medium","label":"20th-Century Literary Criticism","score":0.7467,"source":"bisac_hint_model"}],"publisher":[{"bisac_code":"EDU016000","confidence_band":"high","label":"History of Education","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"},{"bisac_code":"HIS053000","confidence_band":"high","label":"Oceania History","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"},{"bisac_code":"LIT004070","confidence_band":"high","label":"Australian & Pacific Lit Crit","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"},{"bisac_code":"LIT024050","confidence_band":"high","label":"20th-Century Literary Criticism","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"},{"bisac_code":"LIT025060","confidence_band":"high","label":"Race & Culture in Literature","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"}]},"genres":[{"label":"Race & Culture in Literature","score":0.825,"slug":"race-culture-in-literature"},{"label":"Australian & Pacific Lit Crit","score":0.7719,"slug":"australian-pacific-lit-crit"},{"label":"20th-Century Literary Criticism","score":0.7467,"slug":"20th-century-literary-criticism"}],"reader_fit":["Good for readers who enjoy Race & Culture in Literature","Good for readers who enjoy Race & Culture in Literature and Australian & Pacific Lit Crit."],"related_lists":[],"series":null,"similar_books":[{"authors":["Paul Giles"],"book_id":"9780190623999","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780190623999.jpg?v=20260417T232332Z%3A2026-04-17T23%3A23%3A32Z","score":6.0197,"title":"Antipodean America","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780190623999"},{"authors":["Daniel McKay","Patrick Porter","Joanna Bourke"],"book_id":"9781531505165","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9781531505165.jpg?v=20260417T232332Z%3A2026-04-17T23%3A23%3A32Z","score":5.9927,"title":"Beyond Hostile Islands","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9781531505165"},{"authors":["Bill Goldstein"],"book_id":"9781250182500","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9781250182500.jpg?v=20260417T232332Z%3A2026-04-17T23%3A23%3A32Z","score":5.8843,"title":"The World Broke in Two","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9781250182500"}],"topics":[],"what_you_get":["Reading lane: Race & Culture in Literature and Australian & Pacific Lit Crit.","Publisher: Columbia University Press."]},"llm_signals":null,"source_presence":{"amazon":true,"book_detail":true,"goodreads":false,"llm_signals":false,"similarity_seed":true},"stats":{"amazon_ratings_count":0,"goodreads_ratings_count":0,"goodreads_reviews_count":0,"quality_score":0.8}}