New CHamoru Literature highlights an intergenerational selection of eighteen emerging, mid-career, and established CHamoru authors, including an extended feature on master storyteller Peter R. Onedera. As Onedera explains in his essay, “The Dilemma of an Official Word,” Chamorro, Chamoru, CHamoru are different spellings of the same “description used in reference to Guam’s indigenous people and those in the Marianas archipelago for thousands of years.” Within the pages of this rich collection, you will find diverse genres, including poetry, chant, fiction, creative nonfiction, and playwriting. The pieces are composed predominantly in English; however, the opening chant is in the CHamoru language (with translation by the author), other pieces are multilingual, and one poem is composed in CHamoru creole English. The themes range from genealogy to identity, colonialism to cultural revitalization, ecological connection to environmental injustice, love to sexual abuse, and belonging to diaspora. This anthology will introduce readers to the Mariana archipelago and the vibrancy of CHamoru literature, culture, histories, migrations, politics, memories, traumas, and dreams.
