what is Marshallese literature?
Marshallese culture is predominantly oral, with tales whose protagonists are such beings as the whale, the hermit crab, the needlefish or the sandpiper. Also the Europeans left a small legacy of colonial literature: mostly short stories set in Marshallese ambiences, authored by Jane Downing and Georges Lewis Becke.
Yet certainly, Marshall Islands are famous not for their literature, but because of the bombs that have been detonated on Bikini and the nearby islands and atolls. The problem of the habitats destroyed by radiation and the grievances of the local population fill one of the darkest pages in the American history; only recently, they get out from the oblivion into full public awareness. Quite a singular testimony has been given by Ernest George Moll in the poem A Scientist writes from Bikini (1953):
Yes, I may tell you what it is we learn
Poking among the wreckage day by day:
Measuring Force by what he did in play
We estimate (granted that he should turn
Serious some day) how clean the world will burn;
And thus I'll summarize it if I may:
For men well grouped "a million, let us say"
A thimble will be a sufficient urn.
Yet certainly, Marshall Islands are famous not for their literature, but because of the bombs that have been detonated on Bikini and the nearby islands and atolls. The problem of the habitats destroyed by radiation and the grievances of the local population fill one of the darkest pages in the American history; only recently, they get out from the oblivion into full public awareness. Quite a singular testimony has been given by Ernest George Moll in the poem A Scientist writes from Bikini (1953):
Yes, I may tell you what it is we learn
Poking among the wreckage day by day:
Measuring Force by what he did in play
We estimate (granted that he should turn
Serious some day) how clean the world will burn;
And thus I'll summarize it if I may:
For men well grouped "a million, let us say"
A thimble will be a sufficient urn.
I have read... nothing ...
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I have written... nothing ...
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