Mavis Hara

Softcover, 169 pp. 

Winner of the Hawaiʻi Book Publishers Association Ka Palapala Poʻokela Honorable Mention Award for Excellence in Literature

An Offering of Rice is written with a careful narrative restraint that results in a striking honesty, short stories and poems that are rich in visual clarity and deeply moving in their treatment of the subjects of bi-cultural life, family, illness, and individual identity. As a hybrid of fiction and poetry, this is one of the best blending of those two disciplines in our literature, and among the stories in this collection is the single best piece on cancer that I have ever read. – Ian MacMillan

This long awaited book of stories from Mavis Hara is everything we hoped for—and more. Gritty and tough-minded, lyrical by turns, this is no mere nostalgic feel-good journey to the plantation past. There is here a wealth of fine observation, a nuance and precision of detail—the naming of telling human gestures that go unnamed except for the poet and storytellers’ art. – Sylvia Watanabe