COMMON BOOK: Sharks in the Time of Saviors

COMMON BOOK: Sharks in the Time of Saviors

By Erik Bakke, Executive Director for International Student Services

Before the start of each fall semester, Menlo College chooses a common book that is required reading for first-year students and recommended reading for the entire Menlo community. The year’s common book promotes engagement in the curricular and co-curricular life of the college, fosters community engagement, and assists students in clarifying their purpose, meaning, and direction.

The 2022 common book is Kawai Strong Washburn’s novel Sharks in the Time of Saviors It is a post-colonial story of a Hawaiian family enduring heartbreaking poverty and loss while awaiting, and maybe even witnessing, the return of the old gods. It is a story of triumph in the face of cultural opposition and environmental devastation. Tommy Orange, the author of the Menlo College 2019 common book ThereThere, says, “So good it hurts and hurts to where it heals. It is revelatory and unputdownable.”

Our students also loved the book, chosen in part to acknowledge the strong presence of Hawaiian students on Menlo’s campus. Hawaiian students appreciated the voice of an author born on the Hamakua coast of the Big Island of Hawai’i. Many commented on the realism of the dynamics of the college-age siblings and the chance to see in writing a Hawai’i not depicted in airline advertisements. They also related to the story of three siblings making their way out of high school and through college and into life beyond while navigating relationships with their family and with their homeland. As first-year student Jacqueline Hernandez ’26 wrote, “As I continued reading this novel I really appreciated how the author allowed each character to tell their point of view and their side of the story.”

The importance of home and indigenous culture, the question of how to respond to the challenges posed by a post-colonial societal structure (one particularly challenging to those Hawaiians without means or property), and the question of how to respond to contemporary environmental threats made the work an effective starting point for broad discussion about our shared contemporary moment and how we all are educating ourselves to prepare for the future.