As a child, Kahikāhealani Wight loved Hawaiian stories and songs and wanted to learn everything she could about her culture, but in those years, it was discouraged. Then in midlife, she purchased a cottage near the erupting summit of Kīlauea in a native rainforest in Volcano village on Hawai‘i Island, and lived there for 5 years. Rainforest Pu‘uhonua is her eloquent and moving memoir of those years of awakening amid the plants and ferns, birds and insects, mist and fires of old Hawai‘i. Wight’s rhythmic prose and gift for mo‘olelo, along with 62 exquisite paintings and photos by local artists, convey the depth and magic of the Hawai‘i bioregion, bringing the ancestral stories to life.

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Author Kahikāhealani Wight has taught Hawaiian language for more than 20 years. She is the author of Learn Hawaiian at Home and Illustrated Hawaiian Dictionary.

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paperback | 229 pages | 6" x 9" | B&W

REVIEWS:

“Kahi Wight’s words spring out of an authentic Hawaiian voice and a specific, beloved landscape that became and remains her spiritual puʻuhonua, her refuge, her connection point. It is written from her naʻau, from all the years of repression her generation went through and the emotional pain we Hawaiians hold. Kahi’s writing heals.”

—Manulani Aluli Meyer, author of Ho‘oulu: Our Time of Becoming

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Kahi Wight

Rainforest Pu‘uhonua: A Memoir