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Surfacing spinner dolphins, Kealakekua Bay, Hawai‘i, 2004. Photograph by Wayne Levin (32:2)
“[MĀNOA] has grown from one more literary magazine into a unique international publication, each issue unlike any of its predecessors.”
— W.S. Merwin
MĀNOA is a Pacific journal of international writing. Launched in 1989, MĀNOA brings the literature of the Pacific, Asia and the Americas to English-speaking readers twice a year.
A unique, award-winning literary journal, MĀNOA presents American and international fiction, poetry, artwork, and essays of current cultural or literary interest. Most issues of the journal are curated by one or more guest editors, who are writers and experts in and of particular languages, regions and literary communities.
Beautifully produced, the journal has published over sixty volumes, 10,000 pages, and 1,400 writers, translators, reviewers, and editors over more than thirty-five years. An outstanding feature is a distinguished history of original translations of past and contemporary work from Pacific and Asian languages. Past volumes have featured new work from CHamoru, the Philippines, the People’s Republic of China, Tibet, Nepal, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Okinawa, Viet Nam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand, Australia, French Polynesia, the Pacific Islands, India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, as well as Canada, Mexico, Pacific South America, Russian Far East, and Cascadia.
The journal has also produced issues that transcend easy containment within nations and regions. One such recent issue is dedicated to the literary output of global communities formed by the South Asian coolie diaspora; another is an issue featuring Latinx writing across all kinds of borders from North to Central America and the Caribbean.
Works in MĀNOA have been cited for excellence by the editors of such anthologies as Best American Short Stories, Best American Poetry, Best American Essays, Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards, and Pushcart Prize. MĀNOA has also received national awards for its design and editorial excellence. Writers published in MĀNOA have won awards ranging from the Nobel Prize for Literature to the Pulitzer Prize.
Among other activities, MĀNOA facilitates a lively, ongoing literary conversation through its blog on its website, and runs an open-submission “MĀNOA Journal” contest in poetry and fiction. The winning and runner-up submissions in the contest receive cash awards and are published in the print journal.
MĀNOA 