Volcanoes, Palm Trees, and Privilege: Essays on Hawai‘i - Liz Prato

"Volcanoes, Palm Trees, and Privilege: Essays on Hawai'i" is a thought-provoking and compelling book that delves into the complex relationship between tourists and the Hawaiian islands. Liz Prato combines personal narrative, research, and humor to explore the author's role as a white tourist in a land shaped by outsiders. This book, a New York Times Top Summer Read Finalist and Oregon Book Award winner, masterfully weaves together Hawaiian history, pop culture, contemporary affairs, and the author's own experiences of loss and survival. Prato's essays offer unique insights into the touristic ideal of Hawai'i and its core identity, providing a powerful rebuke to cultural appropriation while paying tribute to the place she loves. With praise from the New York Times Book Review and Publishers Weekly, this book is a must-read for those seeking a deeper understanding of Hawai'i beyond the surface.

FINALIST for the Oregon Book Award 

Best Travel Memoirs of 2019 - The Great Big Story

224 PAGES | ISBN-13  978-1732610309 

What people are saying about this book:

". . . a rebuke to cultural appropriation, combined with a tribute to a place [Prato] loves too much to make her own."  --The New York Times Book Review, Summer Reads June 3, 2019

“…a complicated love letter to a place and powerful reckoning of a life.” - Cheryl Strayed, best-selling author of Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, Brave Enough, and Tiny Beautiful Things

“…a secular devotional to a place that has woven its way into Liz Prato’s heart. Breathtaking.” - Lidia Yuknavitch, author of the New York Times Notable Book, The Book of Joan, Verge, and The Misfit's Manifesto

“Liz Prato’s fearless and tender investigation of our complex relationship with Hawai‘i will blow your mind.” - Karen Karbo, best-selling author of Yeah. No. Not Happening., In Praise of Difficult Women and Kick-Ass Women

 "We witness a deeply personal tale of love, loss, and honest accounting as the author comes to understand her relationship with the islands through the crucible of family.” —Kristiana Kahakauwila, author of This Is Paradise

"...a moving memoir about familial loss and the reconstitution of an essential version of the self. Liz Prato is beautifully smart about how disempowerment works, and how to combat it." - Jim Shepard, author of The World to Come: Stories and Like You'd Understand, Anyway

"Liz Prato's Volcanoes, Palm Trees, and Privilege is the most readable and personal work of political ecology I know. I'd assign in a heartbeat if I could just get back to the classroom." - Paul Robbins, Ph.D. / Director, Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison