Lillian Howan - Blog Posts
Lights From A Distance An essay I wrote about my father, ancient navigation, and Tahiti. Thank you author, activist, actor, and poet Leslie Stuart Tate for your beautiful presentation of my essay. Thank you Francoise Holozet-Howan for this wondrous photo.
Thank you author & literary shaman Leslie Stuart Tate for interviewing me on my childhood in Tahiti and my novel The Charm Buyers, as well as chronic illness, and lupus. Thankful to Francoise Holozet-Howan for the spectacular photos - this interview begins with a translation of her message re why she shares these photos: to bring more awareness to the environmental vulnerability of these islands, on the frontlines of climate change.
photo courtesy of Chantal Howan
Hawai’i Vog: Volcanic/Fog/Smog
Thankful to the Hawai’i Book and Music Festival where I’ll be speaking as part of the Ms.aligned 2 panel. Sunday May 6 at 11 am to 12 noon, Makai Authors, Frank F. Fasi Civic Grounds in Honolulu. Grateful to my fellow Ms.aligned poets and writers speaking on the panel: Pat Matsueda, Emily Benton, Adele NeJame, and Angela Nishimoto!
Deeply grateful to read at two events:
Seventeen Syllables and Friends reading at J-Sei, Sunday March 4 at 2 pm, with Jay Dayrit, Brian Komei Dempster, Caroline Kim-Brown, Mari L’Esperance, Grace Loh Prasad, Brynn Saito, and Marianne Villanueva. 1285 66th Street, Emeryville, California.
Ms Aligned 2: Women Writing About Men reading at Eastwind Books of Berkeley, Saturday March 10 at 3 pm, with Connie Pan, Allison Landa, and Sarah Kobrinsky. 2066 University Avenue, Berkeley, California.
Thank you Honolulu Magazine for naming The Charm Buyers one of 29 Must-Read Local Books You Won’t Want to Put Down This Holiday Season!
Honored to be included in the Ms Aligned 2 Women’s Literature Anthology
http://elleonliteraryarts.org/b_ms_aligned.php
cover art: Súa Agapé
Nimbus Cat is delighted to announce:
Lillian Howan and Becca Lawton in conversation together at Sonoma Valley Library, 755 West Napa Street, Sonoma, California, on Monday September 18 at 7 pm. A percentage of all book sales will benefit the library.
In Conversation: Danger, Loss, and Renewal, both literary and environmental
http://sonomacounty.libcal.com/event/3500813?hs=a
https://www.amazon.com/Charm-Buyers-Lillian-Howan/dp/0824858522
photo: Angelica by Lillian Howan
Welcome readers!
A special welcome to travelers on the Magic Realism Blog Hop!
I’m the author of The Charm Buyers (University of Hawai’i Press 2017), a novel of love and magic, loss and renewal, set in Tahiti. I spent my early childhood in Tahiti and have returned several times since. Tahiti and the South Pacific is the home of my extended family and the final resting place of my mother and father.
In the islands, many cultures and realities coexist. What is magic to some, is reality for others. Magical realism becomes realistic magic.
Feel free to peruse the photos here. (You may have to click on “Home” at the top of the page.)
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the uninhabited Îles Maria, Australes Islands
photo: Francoise Holozet-Howan
University of Hawai’i Press (2017)
The Charm Buyers describes extraordinary beauty and turbulent change: Tahiti during the last years of nuclear testing in the Pacific.
“The Charm Buyers isn’t just a book, it’s a world―full of the complexity and beauty of life, masterfully created. Reading this felt like diving into a reality both eerily familiar and yet artistically brand new. Lillian Howan’s talent is rare, refreshing, and casts a spell from page one.” —Mat Johnson, author of Loving Day and Pym
“The Charm Buyers is a thought-provoking insight into a time of cultural change. It captures an essence of existing between reality and surreality, dreaming and wakefulness, the past and the future.” —Foreword Reviews
https://www.forewordreviews.com/reviews/the-charm-buyers/
It reads like Joan Didion on opium - Honolulu Magazine reviews The Charm Buyers.
Delighted to be on Honolulu Magazine’s Must-Reads Summer Books List!
University of Hawai’i Press (2017)
The Charm Buyers describes extraordinary beauty and turbulent change: Tahiti during the last years of nuclear testing in the Pacific.
“The Charm Buyers isn’t just a book, it’s a world―full of the complexity and beauty of life, masterfully created. Reading this felt like diving into a reality both eerily familiar and yet artistically brand new. Lillian Howan’s talent is rare, refreshing, and casts a spell from page one.” —Mat Johnson, author of Loving Day and Pym
“The Charm Buyers is a thought-provoking insight into a time of cultural change. It captures an essence of existing between reality and surreality, dreaming and wakefulness, the past and the future.” —Foreword Reviews
https://www.forewordreviews.com/reviews/the-charm-buyers/
Takaroa
Tuamotu Islands
photo: Francoise Holozet-Howan
the Vaima, Tahiti
photo: Francoise Holozet-Howan
Manoa Valley, Honolulu