Maualaivao Albert Wendt has for many years been regarded as one of the Pacific's leading writers and a major influence on Pacific literature. His novels include Leaves of the Banyan Tree (which won the fiction section of the New Zealand Book Awards in 1980), Ola (which won the Commonwealth Book Prize for South-East Asia and the Pacific in 1991), The Mango's Kiss and Sons for the Return Home. He is also a widely published poet. Albert Wendt recently retired as Professor of English at the University of Auckland.