Professor Epeli Hau’ofa Dies: Pacific Loses a Great Matua
Professor Epeli Hau'ofa. Photo courtesy of the University of the South Pacific
One of the Pacific’s great figures of the 20th and 21st Centuries has died. Professor Epeli Hau’ofa passed away on Sunday, 11th January 2009. Epeli as he was known to most, was born in Papua New Guinea to missionary parents from Tonga. He grew up in PNG, Fiji and Tonga and studied in Australia and Canada. He worked in Tonga as Deputy Private Secretary to the King of Tonga before moving to Fiji where he taught sociology at the University of the South Pacific. He leaves an important legacy behind him as an internationally acclaimed philosopher and writer whose essays “Our Sea of Islands” and “The Ocean in Us” continue to transform how Pacific people understand their world. As a writer, he wrote Tales of the Tikongs and Kisses in the Nederends as well as numerous other short stories and poems. As a mentor to Pacific intellectuals, Epeli inspired several of the region’s most prominent academics. He also founded and was the first director of the University of the South Pacific’s Oceania Centre for Arts and Culture where he supported emerging Pacific artists, sculptors, writers, dancers, weavers, carvers, musicians and writers. His passing is a major loss to the intellectual and creative life of Oceania.
This entry was posted on Monday, January 12th, 2009 at 11:56 am and is filed under Dance, Literature, Music, Traditional, Visual Arts.
