BOOKS


Author Interview Makana Yamamoto


Makana Yamamoto’s SF début, a heist set on a space station far from Earth, draws on the author’s Hawaiian heritage


Katie Fraser @katiefr3 18 4th October 2024


‘‘I


t’s ‘Ocean’s Eight’, but everybody’s a lesbian and it’s in space,” says Makana Yamamoto over video call from their home in Boston, Massachusets, of their début


novel Hammajang Luck. “That’s the joke answer. If I had to condense it down, it would be a heist novel about family, about home, culture and coming back home.” Hammajang Luck is an incredible achievement, both a


masterfully craſted science-fiction adventure and a medi- tation on the meaning of home. The story is a deeply politi- cal read cloaked in a heist narrative that draws atention to issues confronting contemporary Hawaii and Hawaiian culture. Only eight authors from the Pacific Islands signed a book deal last year, Yamamoto tells me, and this brings a strong desire to present a “respectful and authentic depic- tion” of their culture, home and family. However, it also brings pressure to be the “perfect spokesperson”. They continued: “I had a lot of fear about it. I really wanted to do right by my communit.” Début author Yamamoto is māhū, a Hawaiian term for people who embody the female and male spirit. Even if the book did not begin as a “political statement” about the Hawaiian diaspora, for Yamamoto the very act of writing is charged. “My identit is politicised. Even if I don’t want to be politicised, it’s just the nature of existing in this world as someone who is non-binary, who is māhū, who is not white, who is a lesbian. Writing about my identit is a political statement even if I don’t want it to be.”


© Tara Arseven


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56