Obasan

Joy Kogawa

Jan 2019 · Penguin Random House Audio · Kuchazwe ngu-Mary Ito

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A powerful and passionate novel, Obasan tells, through the eyes of a child, the moving story of Japanese Canadians during the Second World War. Naomi is a sheltered and beloved five-year-old when Pearl Harbor changes her life. Separated from her mother, she watches bewildered as she and her family become enemy aliens, persecuted and despised in their own land. Surrounded by hardship and pain, Naomi is protected by the resolute endurance of her aunt Obasan and the silence of those around her. Only after Naomi grows up does she return to question the haunting silence.

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JOY KOGAWA was born in Vancouver in 1935 to Japanese Canadian parents. During World War II, Joy and her family were forced to move to Slocan, British Columbia, an injustice Kogawa addresses in her award-winning novel, Obasan. Kogawa has worked to educate Canadians about the history of Japanese Canadians, and she was active in the fight for official governmental redress. In 1986, Kogawa was made a Member of the Order of Canada and in 2010, the Japanese government honored her with the Order of the Rising Sun "for her contribution to the understanding and preservation of Japanese-Canadian history."