Kawai Strong Washburn

Delicately balancing Hawaiian myth and the broken American dream, Kawai Strong Washburn’s Sharks in the Time of Saviours has been hailed by novelist Marlon James as a “ferocious debut” in which “old myths clash with new realities, love is in a ride or die with grief [and] faith rubs hard against magic”. Kawai joins Winnie Dunn to discuss his lush, virtuosic portrait of Hawaiian identity, mythology and diaspora that examines what it means to be both of a place and a stranger in it.

This recording is available on all major podcast platforms. 

Kawai Strong Washburn (International)

Kawai Strong Washburn was born and raised on the Hamakua coast of the Big Island of Hawaii. His work has appeared in Best American Nonrequired Reading, McSweeney's and Electric Literature's Recommended Reading, among others. He was a 2015 Tin House Summer Scholar and 2015–2016 Bread Loaf work-study scholar. He has lived and worked in Guatemala, Nicaragua, Palestine, Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia and Namibia. Today, he lives with his wife and daughters in Minneapolis. Sharks in the Time of Saviours is his first novel.

Winnie Dunn (Australian)

Winnie Dunn is a Tongan-Australian writer and arts worker from Mt Druitt. She is the General Manager of Sweatshop: Western Sydney Literacy Movement. Winnie’s work has been published in The Sydney Review of Books, Going Down Swinging, Griffith Review, Meanjin, SBS Voices, Southerly and Red Room Poetry. She is the editor of several anthologies, most recently Sweatshop Women and This Little Red Thing. Winnie is currently completing her debut novel as the recipient of a 2019 CAL Ignite Grant.