Marie Hara has died.
For the last 40 years, Marie was an author, editor, teacher. mentor,
and community builder, a crucial member of the literary community in
Hawai`i.
Marie was
co-organizer of the crucial Talk Story Conference in the late 1970s
that led to the creation of Bamboo Ridge Press, which “publishes
literature by and about Hawai’i’s people.” Her book of short
stories, Bananaheart and Other Stories, was published by
Bamboo Ridge in 1994. She co-edited, with Nora Okja Keller, the
anthology, Intersecting Circles: the voices of hapa women in poetry
and prose (1999). She was winner of the Elliot Cades Award for
Literature n 1995. She taught the first classes in Asian American
Literature in the state of Hawai`i and was a long-time instructor in
the UH English Department. [I’m not sure what years she taught.]
Those
are some facts about Marie. The truth is less tangible, but also
significant. Marie was kind, quirky, attentive and compassionate to
her students and friends, open-minded in her reading and teaching
practices. She leaves behind her husband, John, who designed UHWO’s
campus and the Luce wing of the Hawai`i Museum of Art (among many
other buildings), two daughters, and grandchildren.
She was a dear friend.
