Renowned Samoan author and playwright Albert Wendt was the only writer from outside Asia invited to Tokyo for the 2008 World PEN Forum in February.
Leading writers from Japan, China, Indonesia, Taiwan, and Thailand also attended. The topic of the forum was: Natural Disasters and Culture: Screamed, Survived, and Then?
Wendt participated in public discussions about how writers write about natural disasters in their fiction and poetry. He talked about how he used the 1967 hurricane in Samoa in his novel, Leaves of the Banyan Tree, and the disastrous 1918 Influenza Epidemic in his novel, The Mango's Kiss.
Kenzaburo Oe, Japan's Nobel Prize winner for Literature, gave the keynote address and paid a special tribute to Wendt's writing.
The Forum featured theatre performances of a story by each of the writers. Wendt's story, 'Pint-sized Devil on a Thoroughbred', was performed in Space Zero, a theatre in central Tokyo, to a large audience.
Some of Japan's leading actors, musicians, and artists participated in the performances which were an innovative and compelling blend of oral story-telling, live music, and artwork screened on large backdrops.
“The Japan Forum was the best organised and most hospitable meeting I have ever attended,” he tells SPASIFIK.
Wendt and his partner Reina Whaitiri enjoyed the experience, thoroughly. They also loved Tokyo which he describes as “a bewildering but magnificent city” of nearly 13 million people.
For the last four years, Wendt and Whaitiri have been teaching at the University of Hawaii at Manoa in Honolulu. Wendt holds the Citizen's Chair there.
They will be returning to Auckland later this year to resettle into their home in Ponsonby, Auckland.
