Christina Thompson

Christina Thompson is best known for her book Sea People: The Puzzle of Polynesia, which won the 2020 Australian Prime Minister's Literary Award for Nonfiction.^[1]

Career

Christina Thompson was born in Lausanne, Switzerland, and grew up outside of Boston. She received her bachelor's degree in English, Phi Beta Kappa, from Dartmouth College^[2] in 1981 and her Ph.D. in English from University of Melbourne in 1990.^[3] From 1994 to 1998 she was editor of Meanjin, one of Australia's leading literary journals.^[4]

The editor of Harvard Review since 2000,^[5] she teaches in the Writing Program at Harvard University Extension,^[6] where she was awarded the James E. Conway Teaching Writing Award in 2008.

Her first book, a memoir called Come on Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All, was published in July 2008 by Bloomsbury USA. The story of the cultural collision between Westerners and the Māori of New Zealand,^[7] it was a finalist for the 2009 NSW Premier's Literary Award and the 2010 William Saroyan International Prize for Writing.^[8]

Her second book, Sea People: The Puzzle of Polynesia, is a history of Polynesian voyaging. Published March 12, 2019 by Harper, it won the 2020 Australian Prime Minister's Literary Award for Nonfiction,^[9] the 2020 Victorian Premier's Literary Award,^[10] and the 2019 New South Wales Premier's History Awards, and was a finalist for the 2020 Phi Beta Kappa Ralph Waldo Emerson Award,^[11] the 2019 Mountbatten Maritime Award, the 2019 Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Award^[12] and the 2019 Queensland Literary Award.^[13]

Her awards and fellowships include a Public Scholar Award from the National Endowment for the Humanities,^[14] a Literature Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and grants from Australia Council, Arts Victoria, the Institute of International Education, and the Australian Federation of University Women.

She is married to Tauwhitu Parangi, a member of the Ngāti Rēhia hapu of the Ngāpuhi iwi of Aotearoa/New Zealand, with whom she has three sons.

Bibliography

Books

• Come on Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All (2008, Bloomsbury)^{[15][16][17][18][19]}
• Sea People: The Puzzle of Polynesia (2019, Harper)^{[20][21][22][23][24]}

Articles

• "Skewing Male," Daily Scholar, Nov. 14, 2020
• “Some Kind of Kin,” Orion, Summer 2019, vol. 38, no. 2
• “Robert Louis Stevenson’s South Pacific Voyage,” BBC World Histories, 16, June/July 2019
• “The Ritual of Renewal,” Daily Scholar, Apr. 10, 2019
• “On Being an Outsider,” New York Times, Mar. 29, 2019
• “Down the Research Rat Hole,” JSTOR Daily, Dec. 20, 2018
• “Lay Your Sleeping Head, My Love,” Paris Review Daily, May 27, 2013
• "Prose Matters,” Essay Daily, Sep. 27, 2013        

References

1. Office for the Arts, Department of Infrastructure (10 December 2020). "2020 winners announced today #PMLitAwards". www.arts.gov.au. Retrieved 17 May 2021.
2. "Christina Thompson". AustLit: Discover Australian Stories. Archived from the original on 16 March 2017. Retrieved 18 May 2021.
3. Thompson, Christina Abbott (1990), The paradigm journey to the paradigm elsewhere: Studies in South Pacific romance, retrieved 19 May 2021
4. "Christina Thompson". LinkedIn.
5. "About". Harvard Review. Archived from the original on 22 April 2019. Retrieved 17 May 2021.
6. "Christina Thompson". Harvard University. Archived from the original on 4 September 2016. Retrieved 17 May 2021.
7. "Come on shore and we will kill and eat you all: An Unlikely Love Story by Christina Thompson". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 17 May 2021.
8. ""Q&A With Christina Thompson"". ReadMoreCO. Retrieved 17 May 2021.
9. Lewis, Kathryn (10 December 2020). "'I was tired of being told where I belong': Poet's big literary award". The Canberra Times. Retrieved 17 May 2021.
10. "Victorian Premier's Literary Awards 2020". The Wheeler Centre. Archived from the original on 4 March 2020. Retrieved 17 May 2021.
11. "Phi Beta Kappa Book Awards Shortlist - PBK". The Phi Beta Kappa Society. 17 May 2021. Archived from the original on 1 October 2020.
12. "SONWA". Northland College. Archived from the original on 15 April 2020. Retrieved 17 May 2021.
13. "Queensland Literary Awards 2019 shortlists announced". Books+Publishing. 1 October 2019. Retrieved 16 November 2024.
14. "National Endowment for the Humanities Announces $1.7 Million for Public Scholars". The National Endowment for the Humanities. Retrieved 19 May 2021.
15. McCulloch, Alison (20 July 2008). "I Married a Maori". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 18 May 2021.
16. Stead, C. K. (15 August 2008). "Review: Come on Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All by Christina Thompson". the Guardian. Retrieved 18 May 2021.
17. "'Come On Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All' by Christina Thompson". The Monthly. 2 September 2008. Archived from the original on 18 May 2021. Retrieved 18 May 2021.
18. Rosenbloom, Joseph. "A tale of love and exploration". Boston.com. Retrieved 18 May 2021.
19. COME ON SHORE AND WE WILL KILL AND EAT YOU... | Kirkus Reviews.
20. Conniff, Richard (15 March 2019). "'Sea People' Review: The Globe's Greatest Explorers". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 18 May 2021.
21. "'Sea People' Examines The Origins And History Of Polynesia". NPR.org. Retrieved 18 May 2021.
22. Winchester, Simon (14 May 2019). "How Was Polynesia Populated? Two New Books Explore the Pacific's Mysteries". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 18 May 2021.
23. "'Sea People' Examines The Origins And History Of Polynesia". KPBS Public Media. Retrieved 18 May 2021.
24. Upchurch, Michael (4 April 2019). "How one people came to inhabit 10 million square miles of the Pacific". The Boston Globe. Archived from the original on 8 April 2019. Retrieved 18 May 2021.

External links

• Official website