Navigating Islands

Navigating Islands: Plays from the Pacific brings together three plays bydistinguished playwright Victoria Nalani Kneubuhl. The islands of Sāmoa—often called the “Navigator Islands” on nineteenth-century maps of the Pacific—emerge to the fore, fully dimensional, in this dynamic collection. Of both Hawaiian and Sāmoan ancestry, Kneubuhl spent formative years in the islands as a young adult. Her love of Sāmoa, its culture and its people, is woven into the fabric of every scene. In the front matter of this book, fans of the author’s theatrical productions, media work, and novels will be pleased to learn about her creative process and her broad influence on Pacific literature and storytelling. Two of the plays are set at Vailima, Sāmoa, the former home of Robert Louis Stevenson and his family. Aitu Fafine portrays the final days of Stevenson’s life in an unusual historical fantasy. Through myth and stage magic, the play examines the demonization of women, an author’s role in shaping social