Joy Kogawa

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Joy Kogawa (born June 6, 1935 in Vancouver ) is a Canadian writer . She became famous for her novel Obasan (1981), a depiction of the exclusion and deportation of Canadians of Japanese origin ( Nisei ) in World War II.

Life and work

She was born Joy Nozomin Nakayama in Vancouver in 1935 and grew up there until 1942. Her parents were of Japanese descent; her father Goichi Gordon Nakayama worked as an Anglican priest since 1932 . After the outbreak of World War II , were considered the Japanese-Canadians on the coasts as potential danger, she was with her family in an internment camp in Slocan ( British Columbia spent). After the war, her family were in Coaldale in the prairie province of Alberta interned. There she finished her school education. In 1957 she married David Kogawa. She studied at the University of Saskatchewan , Anglican Women's Training College, and the Toronto Conservatory of Music, as well as education at the University of Alberta .

In 1967 Kogawa made her debut with the volume of poetry The Splintered Moon , in which she deals with her failed marriage. In 1968 she was divorced from David Kogawa. From 1974 to 1976 she worked for the Prime Minister's Office . In 1978 she was Writer-in-Residence at the University of Ottawa .

In her first novel, Obasan (1981), she describes the humiliation and suffering of Canadians of Japanese descent during World War II from the perspective of a woman named Naomi Nakane who remembers her childhood experiences. In it, Kogawa processed numerous diary entries, letters, government documents and newspaper texts from the estate of the Japanese-Canadian journalist Muriel Kitagawa (1912–1974). : 21 The novel was u. a. Received the Books in Canada First Novel Award (1982). Because of the historical parallels, Obasan is standard reading for many Asian-American Studies courses in the United States that deal with the internment of Americans of Japanese descent . : 16 In 1986, Kogawa processed the story into the picture book Naomi's Road .

In addition to her educational work as a writer, Kogawa also campaigned for an official state apology and compensation for the inmates and relatives of the victims of the Canadian internment camps.

In 1986, Kogawa was made a Member of the Order of Canada .

In 1992, Kogawa released Itsuka , a sequel to Obasan . After her father admitted multiple sexual abuse in a letter to the Anglican Church in 1994, Kogawa worked this on in her novel The rain ascends (1995) in fictionalized form.

In 2005, the Vancouver Opera produced the children's opera of the same name based on their book Naomi's Road . In 2006, Kogawa was inducted into the Order of British Columbia . In the same year, the house where she was born in Vancouver was acquired by the Land Conservancy of British Columbia and expanded into a writers' residence with a writer-in-residence program.

In 2010 the Japanese Cabinet awarded her the Order of the Rising Sun for “her contribution to the understanding and preservation of Japanese-Canadian history” . From 2012 to 2013 she was Writer-in-Residence at the University of Toronto.

Works

Poetry
  • The Splintered Moon . Fiddlehead Poetry Books, Fredericton 1967
  • A choice of dreams. McClelland & Stewart, Toronto 1974
  • Jericho Road. McClelland & Stewart, Toronto 1977
  • Six poems. League of Canadian Poets, Toronto 1980
  • Woman in the Woods. Mosaic, Oakville 1985
  • A Song of Lilith. Polestar, Vancouver 2000 (Illustr. Lilian Broca)
  • A Garden of Anchors: Selected Poems. Mosaic, Oakville 2003
Novels
  • Obasan. Lester & Orpen Dennys, Toronto 1981
  • Itsuka. Penguin, Toronto 1992
    • New version: Emily Kato . Penguin, 2005
  • The Rain Ascends. Knopf, Toronto 1995
  • Gently to Nagasaki: A Spiritual Pilgrimage. An Exploration Both Communal and Intensely Personal. (Autobiography) Caitlin, Halfmoon Bay 2017
Children's literature
  • Naomi's Road. Oxford University Press, 1986; again Fitzhenry & Whiteside, Toronto 2005
  • Naomi's Tree. Fitzhenry & Whiteside, Toronto 2009

Honors (selection)

literature

  • Laura K. Davis, "Joy Kogawa's " Obasan ": Canadian Multiculturalism and Japanese-Canadian Internment in: British Journal of Canadian Studies 25/1 (2012)
  • Sheena Wilson (Ed.), Joy Kogawa: Essays on Her Works Guernica, 2011 ISBN 978-1-55071-311-4
  • Benjamin Lefebvre, In Search of Someday: Trauma and Repetition in Joy Kogawa's Fiction , Journal of Canadian Studies 44/3 (2010)
  • Christina Tourino, Ethnic Reproduction and the Amniotic Deep: Joy Kogawa's "Obasan", in: Frontiers - A Journal of Women's Studies 24/1 2003
  • Marlene Goldman, A Dangerous Circuit: Loss and the Boundaries of Racialized Subjectivity in Joy Kogawa's "Obasan" and Kerri Sakamoto ’s "The Electrical Field" , in: Modern Fiction Studies 48/2 (2002) pp. 362-388
  • Sarah B. Hood, Aloft with Lilith , in: Performing Arts & Entertainment in Canada 33/3 (2001) pp. 26-27
  • Apollo O. Amoko, "Resilient ImagiNations: No-No Boy, Obasan and the Limits of Minority Discourse", in: Mosaic 33/3 (2000).
  • Laurie Kruk: Voices of Stone: The Power of Poetry in Joy Kogawa's "Obasan", in: Ariel 30/4 (1999) p. 75
  • Mason Harris: Joy Kogawa and Her Works . ECW Press, 1996 ISBN 978-1-55022-327-9
  • Jack David and Robert Lecker, Canadian Writers and Their Works - Fiction: Neil Bissoondath , Austin Clarke , Joy Kogawa, Rohinton Mistry , and Josef Škvorecký . ECW Press, 1996 ISBN 978-1-55022-213-5
  • Arnold E. Davidson, Writing Against the Silence: Joy Kogawa's "Obasan". ECW Press, 1994 ISBN 978-1-55022-179-4
  • King-Kok Cheung, Articulate Silences: Hisaye Yamamoto, Maxine Hong Kingston , Joy Kogawa . Cornell University Press, 1993 ISBN 978-0-8014-8147-5
  • Bruce Meyer, Brian O'Riordan, A Matter of Trust: Joy Kogawa , in: Lives and Works . Black Moss Press, 1992 ISBN 978-0-88753-223-8 pp. 45-52
  • Andrew Garrod, "Interview with Joy Kogawa," in: Speaking for Myself: Canadian Writers in Interview . Breakwater, 1986 ISBN 978-0-920911-10-5 pp. 139-153

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Joy Kogawa at: encyclopediecanadienne.ca, accessed on September 19, 2015 (English, French ).
  2. ↑ Brian Morton, Anglican bishops to apologize for abuse by former Japanese-Canadian priest (June 11, 2015) at: vancouversun.com, accessed on September 19, 2015.
  3. ↑ a b Obasan (1998) on: encyclopedia.com, accessed on September 19, 2015 (English).
  4. ↑ Merna Forster: Betrayed Muriel Kitagawa (1912–1974) , in: 100 More Canadian Heroines: Famous and Forgotten Faces . Dundurn, 2011 ISBN 978-1-55488-970-9 pp. 201-206.
  5. ^ A b Sau-Ling Cynthia Wong: Reading Asian American Literature: From Necessity to Extravagance . Princeton University Press, 1993 ISBN 978-0-691-01541-5
  6. ↑ a b c Joy Kogawa: Awards and Honors at: canpoetry.library.utoronto.ca, accessed on September 19, 2015 (English).
  7. ↑ Marilyn Rose, Erica Kelly, Joy Kogawa (1935 -) at: brocku.ca, accessed on September 19, 2015 (English).
  8. ↑ a b About Joy at: joykogawa.ca, accessed on September 19, 2015 (English).
  9. ↑ Roland Tanglao, Welcome to Historic Joy Kogawa House: About (October 30, 2005) at: kogawahouse.com, accessed September 19, 2015.
  10. ^ The Jack McClelland Writer-in-Residence , University of Toronto , accessed September 19, 2015.
personal data
SURNAME Kogawa, Joy
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kogawa, Joy Nozomi; Kogawa, Joy Nozomi Nakayaman
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Canadian writer
DATE OF BIRTH June 6, 1935
PLACE OF BIRTH Vancouver