Fai Kava
Remembering Epeli Hauofa 1939 - 2009
Professor, philosopher, mentor, poet, satirist, writer, scholar, storyteller
Art, poetry, music and debates by artist and academic communities celebrating Epeli Hauofa's visionary contribution to knowledge and to the creative field. The evening will be in the Epeli style - faikava. Epeli passed away in Suva 11th January 2009.
Epeli was born in Papua New Guinea to missionary parents from Tonga. He grew up in PNG, Fiji and Tonga and studied in Canada and Australia where he graduated with a PhD from the Australian National University. As a writer, he wrote the groundbreaking 'Tales of the Tikongs' and 'Kisses in the Nederends' as well as numerous other short stories and poems. In his "Our Sea of Islands" and "The Ocean in Us", Epeli argued that Pacific identity must be sourced in the vastness of the Pacific Ocean, rather than the smallness of individual atolls, scattered islands and struggling nation states. He saw the Ocean as our major source of sustenance, "our pathway to each other and to everyone else, the sea is our endless saga, the sea is our most powerful metaphor, the ocean is in us".
Epeli became a citizen of Fiji and since 1983 he had been working at the University of the South Pacific's main campus in Suva, Fiji. There he founded the Oceania Centre for Arts and Culture in 1997 where he supported emerging Pacific artists, sculptors, dancers, weavers, carvers, musicians, intellectuals writers and writers until his death.