Song of the Exile » (1ST TRADE)

Kiana Davenport was born and raised in Kalihi, Hawaii. Author of the critically acclaimed novel Shark Dialogues, she has been a Fiction Fellow at Radcliffe's Bunting Institute and the recipient of a Fiction Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. She lives in Boston and Hawaii.


From the Hardcover edition.

In this epic, original novel in which Hawaii's fierce, sweeping past springs to life, Kiana Davenport, author of the acclaimed Shark Dialogues, draws upon the remarkable stories of her people to create a timeless, passionate tale of love and survival, tragedy and triumph, survival and transcendence. In spellbinding, sensual prose, Song of the Exile follows the fortunes of the Meahuna family--and the odyssey of one resilient man searching for his soul mate after she is torn from his side by the forces of war. From the turbulent years of World War II through Hawaii's complex journey to statehood, this mesmerizing story presents a cast of richly imagined characters who rise up magnificent and forceful, redeemed by the spiritual power and the awesome beauty of their islands.

Tony Gibbs

Song of the Exile is a tragic love story whose protagonists are torn apart by World War II, but Davenport has woven a number of themes into her big, powerful tale, from the horrors of modern war to the universality of music (in this case, jazz) as a crosscultural language. Song of the Exile is a tale for readers who love big, colorful, emotive stories. Sometimes spectacle, sometime nightmare, sometimes tearjerker, its a book you won't forget.
&#;151 Island Magazine