Biography Prize

The Biography Prize, sponsored by the Center for Biographical Research, is awarded every Spring  to the best project which focuses on or intersects with any aspect of life writing theory, history, or practice in any medium and discipline. Open to any MA or PhD student at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, the Biography Prize winner receives a monetary award and is invited to give a lecture or Brown Bag Biography presentation.

2023

Adrian Alarilla,”Passionate engagements, intimate entrapments: Love, war, and those caught in between empire and nation”

Christina Lee, “Kill Your Darlings”

Kayla Watabu, “Silence as Stories: The Hidden Possibilities in Silence”

2022

Jacob Hauʻoli Lorenzo-Elarco,”Heleleʻi Ka Ua Lilinoe, Ola Ka Honua”

Sharon Weiner, “Juliette May Fraser: A Kamaʻāina Life in Art”

2021

Li Shan Chan, “On Writing a Life”

Stephanie Sang, “In Time, A Writer”

2020

Aiko Yamashiro, “Nā Hua Ea & Building Decolonial Community (writing poetry with ‘āina and each other)”

Amy Carlson, “Reading Mediated Identities: Auto/Biographical Agency in the Material Book, Museum Space, Social Media Platforms, and Archives”

2019

Noʻuhanauʻoli Revilla, If We Vanish, A Collection of Queer ʻŌiwi Poetry

Lyz Soto, About Homelands Speaking\Her Bodies of Stories

2018

Rachel Reeves, “Holes in the Net”

2017

Kim Compoc, “Weaving Our Sovereignties Together: Maximizing ‘Ea’ for Filipin@s and Hawaiians,” a chapter from her dissertation, “Emergent Allies: Decolonizing Hawaiʻi from a Filipin@ Perspective”

2016

Nicole Kurashige, “Becoming Batman: Postmodern Graphic Memoir, Dean Trippe’s Something Terrible, and the Subversion of Dominant Narratives of Suffering”

2015

Marie Alohalani  Brown, “Facing the Spears of Change: The Life and Legacy of Ione Kaneiakama Papa ʻĪʻī.”

Tiffany Ing, “Ka Ho‘omālamalama ʻna i nā Hūʻailona o ka Mōʻī Kalākaua a me kona Noho Aliʻi ʻana: Illuminating the American, International, and Hawaiʻi Representations of David Kalākaua and his Reign, 1874–1891”

Joseph Han, “Customs”

2014

Rain Wright, “A Way with Water”

2013

Sean Trundle, “Cowboys on the Endless Frontier: State Scientists and the Popular Imagination from the Post-War Era through the Present”

Keoki Kïkaha Pai Baclayon, “E Kü Makani: A ‘Life History’ Story of Kahuna Lä‘au Lapa‘au Levon Ohai”

2012

Alana Bell, “The Lives of Glenn Gould”

Bryan Kamaoli Kuwada, “Hidden Heroes: Cultural Interaction and Nationalism in Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century Hawaiian Biographies”

2011

Bich Ngoc Do, “My Lai Peace Projects: Negotiating Memories”

Trish Tolentino, “Bernice Piʻilani Irwin: Pidgin, Dialect Writing, and Her ʻKakaako Korrespondenceʻ Columns”