Abstract
Like other Japanese-Canadians resident on the West Coast, Kogawa was interned with her family during the Second World War. Obasan, her novel about those years which appeared in 1981 was the first to deal with the treatment of Canadians of Japanese descent and is based on her own experiences and on letters and documents from the period. In the following excerpt, Naomi, the narrator, now grown, learns for the first time of the fate of the mother she last saw when she was five years old, waving goodbye to her as she left for Japan to deal with a family emergency. The war broke out before she could return to Canada and Naomi never saw her again.
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© 1997 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
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Klein, Y.M. (1997). Joy Kogawa (b. 1935). In: Klein, Y.M. (eds) Beyond the Home Front. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-25497-2_43
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-25497-2_43
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-0-333-67016-3
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-25497-2
eBook Packages: Palgrave Social & Cultural Studies CollectionSocial Sciences (R0)