BESS PRESS PUBLISHES BOOK BASED ON DOCUMENTARY FILM THEN THERE WERE NONE

Then There Were None, by award-winning Honolulu writer and artist Martha H. Noyes, is a personal and emotional account, in words and pictures, of the effect of Western contact on the Hawaiian population. Drawing from a variety of sources, Noyes chronicles the effects, from the arrival of Capt. Cook to the present, of disease, written language, the missionaries, landownership, the overthrow of the monarchy, and the suppression of hula and Hawaiian language, concluding with a look at present-day activism. Photographs vividly contrast tourist images with scenes from the real Hawai‘i and highlight the contrast between a culture rooted in cosmology and the material culture of those who made Hawai‘i their own.

In her foreword, documentary filmmaker Elizabeth Kapu‘uwailani Lindsey Buyers sums up the spirit of the book: “Then There Were None was born from unspoken words, unshed tears, and wounded spirits. It is not a tale of blame or victimization. It is an effort to give voice to küpuna who became strangers in their own land, a land that once nourished their dreams and now cradles their bones. Without these stories, Hawai‘i's history is incomplete.”

Bess Press , celebrating 25 years of independent publishing is located in Honolulu , Hawai'i and publishes trade titles about Pacific-related topics in the following categories: children's literature, cookbooks, humor, sports, languages, reference books, and guidebooks.

Review copies and digital images are available from Bess Press: info@besspress.com , (808) 734-7159, ext. 21.

ISBN 1-57306-155-7, 120 pages, $10.95