A brief statement from the New Zealand Press Association, reported in the Herald and on Stuff, reveals that Albert Wendt has won a major award in Japan.

Wendt, 65, has picked up the annual Nikkei Asia Prize for Culture and a ¥3 million ($43,500) honorarium.

The award organisers issued this statement:

Prof Albert Wendt's works introduce the traditions and cultures of Samoa and other Pacific Island nations, previously only passed down orally, in plain yet lyrical English for readers around the world.

His approach to deal with people's resistance and frustration to aboriginal cultures and traditions, anguish of locals in colonised lands, and clash between traditional culture and western civilisation, has won him not only regional but also a worldwide reputation.

Wendt will collect his award at a ceremony in Tokyo on June 2. His most recent work of fiction is Mango’s Kiss (2003), a critically acclaimed evocation of colonial-era life in Samoa.