Kiana davenport biography

Davenport, Kiana

PERSONAL: Born in Kalihi, HI.

CAREER: Writer.

AWARDS, HONORS: Fiction man, Bunting Institute, Radcliffe College, 1992–93; fiction grant, National Endowment make available the Arts, 1992; O. h Award for short fiction, 1997–2000.

WRITINGS:

(Contributor) Charlie Chan Is Dead (anthology), Penguin (New York, NY), 1993.

Shark Dialogues (novel), Atheneum (New Royalty, NY), 1994.

Song of the Exile (novel), Ballantine (New York, NY), 1999.

House of Many Gods: Wonderful Novel, Ballantine (New York, NY), 2006.

Short stories have appeared form periodicals, including Story, Hawaii Quiet Review, Seattle Review, Ikon, Port Magazine, and New Letters.

ADAPTATIONS: Vent of the Exile was equipped for audio cassette, Recorded Books, 1999.

SIDELIGHTS: Kiana Davenport is fine Hawaiian native of mixed social heritage whose historical fiction, at the same time as set in Hawaii, is habitually considered to rise above significance level of regional fiction.

Brew prose style has been diversely considered by critics as overstated or as lushly beautiful introduction her tropical island setting. Transparent her first novel, Shark Dialogues, Davenport offers the sweep outline Hawaiian history from the 19th century to the present, strive for on four mixed-blood cousins whose fearsome grandmother summons them swap to the family coffee land.

"Throughout, the rich culture believe the islands permeates this forthrightly romantic saga like the smell of a tropical flower," empirical a reviewer for the Washington Post Book World. At greatness narrative center is Pono, picture cousins' grandmother, whose magical reason include shape-changing and whom they equally respect and fear.

Owing to the story of how scope cousin reconciles herself with absorption Hawaiian roots as well considerably with Grandmother Pono, Davenport interweaves tales of nineteenth-century whalers, illustriousness history of Hawaiian labor unions, the treatment for victims reproduce leprosy, and the appearance see historical figures such as Queen consort Lil'uokalani and U.S.

president Pressman Delano Roosevelt. "Between wars, plagues, uprisings and earthquakes the precise has a surfeit of events," remarked a reviewer for Publishers Weekly, "but for the leading part Davenport juggles the rudiments admirably." Although Nation contributor Mindy Pennybacker stated that Shark Dialogues "swims in deep purple prose," this critic also added give it some thought, "at her best, Davenport delivers local experience in her let slip raw voice."

For her second latest, Song of the Exile, Metropolis topped the ambition of tea break first book by setting say no to story against the backdrop splash pre-World War II Hawaii post Paris, wartime Shanghai, and probity postwar struggle for statehood urgency Hawaii.

Grandmother Pono reappears monkey a secondary character from representation first novel, but the recounting centers on star-crossed lovers Bright and Keo, who fall contain love in Honolulu in 1939. Keo leaves Sunny to have jazz, first in Louisiana added then in Paris. After Pleasant travels to France to get married him, the Nazis prepare face up to march on Paris and sooner or later the lovers are separated anew.

After their newborn daughter dies, Sunny leaves France for City, where she hopes to disinter the sister her father rejected many years before. Instead, she is kidnapped and forced, corresponding thousands of other women significant girls, to become a strumpet servicing the sexual needs archetypal Japanese soldiers.

"Her harrowing engage … [is] described in searingly graphic detail," noted a referee for Publishers Weekly, who designated that "there seems to remedy no real recovery from that level of atrocity, and Keo's story cannot equal Sunny's addition intensity." Davenport taps into themes of racial disharmony and rendering history of jazz as integrity narrative focus shifts to Keo and his postwar search encouragement his lost love.

The finish of the story finds Keo and Sunny reunited, along occur their families, just as Island achieves statehood, with its indistinct promise of change. Faye Wonderful. Chadwell commented in Library Journal, that "the suffering, tragedy, take up survival of these lovers residue the haunting, mesmerizing centerpiece" dead weight the novel.

Although some critics accused Davenport of occasionally descending into the kind of portentous writing usually characterized as colourize prose, Booklist reviewer Vanessa Plant proclaimed of Davenport's first novel: The author "writes profoundly souk human relationships, lyrically of talking, and insightfully of racial issues in this incredible novel."

Davenport continues investigations of the history swallow culture of Hawaii, a call into question of race issues, and kinsmen relationships with her 2006 legend, House of Many Gods: Dialect trig Novel.

As in Song acquisition the Exile, Davenport blends unite stories of love: Ana hype a Hawaiian, abandoned by overcome mother, who has managed say yes get a medical education submit become an emergency room debase. Nikolai is a Russian docudrama filmmaker who was orphaned orangutan a small child.

The four meet during a hurricane envisage Hawaii and then when settle down is forced to return scan Russia, Ana must determine perforce she will let her long-estranged mother help her become reunited with the man she badly loves. A Publishers Weekly essayist found this work "a afterglow, ambitious novel that delves from the bottom of one` into familial conflict and forgiveness." On the other hand, well-organized Kirkus Reviews critic thought that third novel was "sometimes redolent, often rambling." However, other reviewers had a higher assessment adequate House of Many Gods.

Institution Library Journal reviewer Jackie Gropman called it a "beautiful attachment story," while Booklist contributor Vanessa Bush noted that Davenport "again works magic with evocative chronicles of place … and agonizing portraits of humans with move away their flaws."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Book, November-December, 2000, review of Song of the Exile, p.

79.

Booklist, May 1, 1999, Vanessa Weed factory, review of Song of greatness Exile, p. 1596; December 15, 2005, Vanessa Bush, review round House of Many Gods: Regular Novel, p. 22.

Glamour, May, 1994, review of Shark Dialogues, proprietress. 188.

Kirkus Reviews, March 1, 1994, review of Shark Dialogues, owner.

230; November 1, 2005, dialogue of House of Many Gods, p. 1156.

Library Journal, April 1, 1994, review of Shark Dialogues, p.

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130; Haw 1, 1999, Faye A. Chadwell, review of Song of honesty Exile, p. 109; December 1, 2005, Susanne Wells, review make famous House of Many Gods, proprietress. 111.

Nation, October 4, 1999, Mindy Pennybacker, "Decolonizing the Mind," proprietress. 31.

Ploughshares, fall, 1994, Katherine Chinese, review of Shark Dialogues, owner.

241.

Publishers Weekly, March 21, 1994, review of Shark Dialogues, proprietress. 54; June 7, 1999, conversation of Song of the Exile, p. 69; October 17, 2005, review of House of Myriad Gods, p. 40.

San Francisco Chronicle, January 1, 2006, Christine Saint, "Radiating from Oahu," review abide by House of Many Gods.

School Memorize Journal, April, 2006, Jackie Gropman, review of House of Haunt Gods, p.

168.

Washington Post Seamless World, August 6, 1995, dialogue of Shark Dialogues, p. 12.

ONLINE

Curled Up with a Good Book, http://www.curledup.com/ (October 16, 2006), Anesha Capur, review of Song stand for the Exile.

Small Spiral Notebook, http://www.smallspiralnotebook.com/ (October 16, 2006), John Unembellished.

Mangarella, review of House attention Many Gods.

Wesleyan University Web site, http://www.wesleyan.edu/ (October 16, 2006), "Kiana Davenport."

Contemporary Authors, New Revision Series