![]() Initially that prophecy seems to come true when Noa’s touch appears to heal a friend’s wound after an accident. Noa’s rescue is miraculous not only because his life is spared but because it echoes an ancient Hawaiian legend that Malia remembers from her childhood - one that suggests that Noa, now anointed, will be the savior of his family, perhaps even of his people. She and her husband have recently moved the family from the Big Island, where they worked as laborers on a sugarcane plantation, to Oahu, and they are drowning in debt. Malia - the matriarch of the family that Kawai Strong Washburn ’08SIPA conjures in his standout debut novel, Sharks in the Time of Saviors - is desperate for something to put her faith in. “And this,” says Noa’s mother, Malia, “was when I started to believe.” But instead of mauling him, the sharks carry Noa gently in their mouths, returning him to the boat unharmed. Then something remarkable happens that will change the family forever: Noa falls overboard into shark-infested waters. ![]() Nainoa (Noa) Flores is seven years old when his family takes a boat tour in their native Hawaii - a common activity for tourists, but a rare treat for working-class locals like them. ![]()
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