1. Albert Wendt is one of the most influential writers in Oceania.
23 Facts About Albert Wendt
1. 2.
Albert Wendt was born in Apia, Western Samoa in 1939, and lived in Samoa as a child.
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Albert Wendt was one of nine children, and his father was a plumber.
4.
Albert Wendt is of German heritage through his great-grandfather on his father's side, but in 2002 said he considered his family heritage to be "totally Samoan".
5.
In 1952, Albert Wendt received a scholarship to attend New Plymouth Boys' High School in New Zealand.
6.
Albert Wendt completed a diploma of teaching at Ardmore Teachers' College in 1959, and subsequently attended Victoria University of Wellington, graduating with a Master of Arts in History in 1964.
7.
Albert Wendt began to publish work in literary magazines, including the New Zealand School Journal, the New Zealand Listener, and Landfall while attending Victoria University.
8.
Albert Wendt has said that at the time he started writing, he was inspired by the examples of Alistair Te Ariki Campbell, Jacquie Sturm and Hone Tuwhare, who were then the only well-known Polynesian writers in New Zealand.
9.
In 1965 Albert Wendt returned to Samoa and became the headmaster of Samoa College.
10.
Albert Wendt continued to send poems and short stories back to New Zealand for publication in magazines, and in 1972 he wrote two plays: Comes the Revolution, performed at the South Pacific Arts Festival, and The Contract, performed at the School's Drama Festival in Apia.
11.
Albert Wendt began working on the epic novel Leaves of the Banyan Tree around this time, but due to its length, put it aside and finished the novel Sons for the Return Home first, which was published in 1973.
12.
In 1974 Albert Wendt was appointed a senior lecturer at the University of the South Pacific, and worked both in Suva and at its Samoan centre.
13.
Albert Wendt was the first Pacific Islander to be appointed as an English professor at the university.
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Albert Wendt received the Senior Pacific Islands Artist's Award at the 2003 Arts Pasifika Awards, and his first play The Songmaker's Chair premiered that year.
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Albert Wendt won his second Commonwealth Writers Prize in the Asia-Pacific Region for this work.
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Albert Wendt became a patron of the New Zealand Book Council in 2015.
17.
Poetry by Albert Wendt was included in UPU, a curation of Pacific Island writers' work which was first presented at the Silo Theatre as part of the Auckland Arts Festival in March 2020.
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Albert Wendt's works have been published widely internationally and translated into French, Chinese, German, Dutch and Japanese.
19.
New Zealand scholar Lydia Wevers said that Albert Wendt's works "have been instrumental in shaping a Pacific literature in English, especially in its evolution from oral to written form".
20.
Albert Wendt is the subject of a documentary, The New Oceania, made in New Zealand by Point of View Productions.
21.
One of his daughters, Mele Albert Wendt, was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to governance in the 2019 New Year Honours.
22.
Albert Wendt has been in a relationship with his partner, Reina Whaitiri, since his marriage ended in the early 1990s.
23.
Albert Wendt is a cousin of actor Nathaniel Lees, who directed and starred in Wendt's play The Songmaker's Chair at the 2003 Auckland Arts Festival.