NOTE: This event is open to members of The Kohala Center’s Circle of Friends only. To become a member or to renew your membership, click here or contact Cortney Okumura at The Kohala Center at cokumura@kohalacenter.org or 808-887-6411.

Keao NeSmith, Ph.D.

The Little Prince, first published in 1943, is a novella and the most famous work of the French aristocrat, writer, poet and pioneering aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. It is a poetic tale self-illustrated in watercolors in which a pilot stranded in the desert meets a young prince fallen to Earth from a tiny asteroid. The story is philosophical and includes social criticism, remarking on the strangeness of the adult world. Ke Keiki Ali‘i Li‘ili‘i is the latest of NeSmith’s efforts at translating classics into Hawaiian, following Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There. He is currently translating The Hobbit, due out this December to coincide with the release of the next film in the series. He hopes his work contributes to an expanding library of reading materials for Hawaiian-language immersion schools. NeSmith will deliver readings in Hawaiian, French, and English.

Dr. NeSmith is an instructor of Hawaiian and Tahitian languages, with an emphasis on language teaching theory, methodology, and teacher training, at the Kawaihuelani Center for Hawaiian Language at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa’s Hawai‘inuiākea School of Hawaiian Knowledge. He holds a master’s degree in Pacific Islands studies from UH-Mānoa and a Ph.D. in applied linguistics from the University of Waikato in New Zealand.

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