180 pp. June 1998
paper, ISBN 978-0-8248-1301-7, $14.99
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Keywords: |
Asian American studies
Hawaii
Korea
history
literature
textbook |
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A Ricepaper Airplane: A Novel
by Gary Pak
Intersections: Asian and Pacific American Transcultural Studies
1999 Ka Palapala Po`okela Award of Merit for Writing Literature
“The narrator of this work of fiction, a teacher, takes leave from his teaching to attend his hospitalized uncle, Kim Sung Wha, during his final days. The old man, in and out of consciousness, sometimes lucid, often not, weaves a rich tapestry of tales from the past, addressing such matters as racial conflicts among various Asian groups working the pineapple plantations, labor relations, family, loyalties, loves, hatreds.... In this novel, Pak fulfills the promise of his The Watcher of Waipuna and Other Stories; ... both are valuable contributions to the literature about the Hawaiian Islands.” —Choice
From a hospital bed a dying man unfolds the tale of an arduous life on the fringes of a Hawai‘i sugar plantation in the 1920s. There Kim Sung Wha—laborer, patriot, revolutionary, aviator—envisioned building an airplane from ricepaper, bamboo, and the scrap parts of a broken-down bicycle, an airplane that would carry him back to his Korean homeland and to his wife and children. From the start Sung Wha’s dream is destined to fail, but this moving and passionate work is the story of a man who dares to life past the wreckage of shattered visions. His is a heroic story of loss, of deep love, and of rebirth.
Gary Pak is a Kane‘ohe boy and fiction writer. The Watcher of Waipuna was his first work to be produced for the stage. His play, Only the Wind’s Home—a dramatization of the Myles Fukunaga murder case—won First Prize in the Kumu Kahua/UHM Department of Theatre Playwriting Contest. His collection of fiction, The Watcher of Waipuna, won the 1993 National Book Award from the Association of Asian American Studies. He was also awarded the Elliot Cades Prize for Literature in 1993. His play Beyond the Falls was produced last year by Hawaii Theatre for Youth.
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