Return to Paradise - Softcover

Return to Paradise is a sequel to Tales of the South Pacific. Return to Paradise is a collection of short stories about different places in the South Pacific, with each story introduced by an article providing facts about that place. Return to Paradise combines fictional short stories with Michener's factual descriptions of the Pacific areas where they take place. In Return to Paradise, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Tales of the South Pacific returns to the scenes of those war tales which won him world recognition. Once again he evokes the magic of the blessed isles in the Pacific with stories and accounts glowing with color and alive with adventure. Return to Paradise is more than a second visit to a land of enchantment; it combines an informative and critical evaluation of faraway people and places with enthralling flights of the imagination by one of the most gifted story-tellers of our time.

Michener was especially interested in the subject of interracial marriage, because his own marriage had been interracial. His book and movie Sayonara about the marriage between a United States Army Officer and a Japanese woman was essentially autobiographical because Michener himself had married a Japanese woman under similar circumstances. The background of Michener himself is most surprising, because Michener had no background. James Michener himself was a foundling. A foundling is a baby who is abandoned at birth by his mother and often left on the steps of a church or a hospital or, worse yet, left in a trash dumpster. Michener was never able to find out who his mother and father were. This was unfortunate for them, as Michener became a millionaire due to the popularity of his works and they could have gotten the money had they identified themselves. His birth date is listed as February 3, 1907 but Michener wrote that he did not know who his biological parents were or exactly when or where he was born. He said he was raised a Quaker by an adoptive mother, Mabel Michener, in Doylestown, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. By the way, my family was from there too!!! Michener did not have children, as his Japanese wife never had children, so Michener has neither known ancestors nor descendants. Having no family to leave his money to, Michener contributed more than $100 million to universities, libraries, museums, and other charitable causes. In his final years, the Micheners lived in Austin, Texas. He and his wife endowed the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas at Austin. It provides Michener Fellowship scholarships to students accepted to the university's MFA in Writing graduate writing program. Suffering from terminal kidney disease, in October 1997, Michener ended the daily Dialysis treatments that had kept him alive for four years. He said he had accomplished what he wanted and did not want further physical complications. On October 16, 1997, James A. Michener died of kidney failure at the age of 90. He was cremated and his ashes were placed next to those of his wife at Austin Memorial Park Cemetery in Austin, Texas. These facts create a situation in which I am very interested. The fact that Michener had no children is probably explained by the fact that his wife was Japanese. Japan has the world's lowest birthrate making them a dying race, as their birthrate is far below replacement levels.