Author - Rob Kay

Vilsoni Hereniko, known to his friends as Vili, has come a long way from his native Rotuma, a Polynesian outlier in the far reaches of the Fiji archipelago. Inspired by the island’s folklore as told to him by his father, the Honolulu-based filmmaker and Professor at the Academy for Creative Media at the University of Hawai’i has just released his latest...

by William O’Grady Editor’s Note: This is the second in a two-part tribute to Al Schutz by University of Hawaii Professor, William O’Grady. One of William’s comments about Al that really struck me was his attention to the impact of nonindigenous scholarship on matters ranging from literacy to language planning. Thus Al was concerned about how...

Editor’s Note: This is the first column in a two-part tribute to Albert J. Schutz. Al Schutz was a close friend. He was also a friend of Fiji, a place he loved dearly, ever since he began his linguistics fieldwork in 1960. Al was a wonderful connection to Fiji’s colonial past. He enjoyed regaling me with anecdotes about some of the more colorful characters that...

  Travel to Fiji may have come to a standstill with Covid, but the good news is that after 35 years Ron Wright’s masterpiece, On Fiji Islands, has been republished by Eland Books. Wright, a Canadian, is a travel writer in the classic British mold. Think Morris, Chatwin, Durrell, or Greene. His prose is unpretentious, elegant, and infused with spirit of place. As...

Ocean Ventures is launching an online course on South Pacific Coral Reef Ecology, to coincide with World Oceans Day and World Ocean Week. Taking inspiration from a field ecology course they have been teaching for many years, this eLearning course aims to bring coral reef ecology and a love of the marine world to everybody who is unable to travel and experience these...

Editor’s Note:  A version of this piece first appeared in the Honolulu Star Advertiser I first arrived Taveuni in 1980 as part of a University of the South Pacific student group, cobbled together to rebuild an earthquake-shattered village. We debarked from an ancient cargo boat at a spare pier, boarded a bus and bumped along the unpaved road. The bus passed...

Rob Kay, the Honolulu-based author of Lonely Planet’s original Fiji guidebook, along with Lautoka, Fiji-based web and applications developer David Barnes, have updated the online travel guide, FijiGuide. Fiji Guide features all original content including blogs, videos, and photos from local photographers. Kay said the site provides the most relevant, up-to-date...

Editor’s Note: A version of this story was published in the Honolulu Star Advertiser.  When Hawaii native Roberta Davis first came to Taveuni in 1986 she never could have dreamed she’d be on the leading edge of reef restoration. For her, discovering Taveuni was all about scuba. An experienced diver, she had never seen anything as pristine as Fiji’s reef...

On December 15 the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) launched Fiji: Art & Life in the Pacific, the most comprehensive array of Fijian art ever mounted in the U.S. The exhibit will run until July 20, 2020. The exhibition features over 280 artworks drawn from major international collections, including the Fiji Museum, British Museum, Museum of Archaeology...