''Obasan'' is a

novel A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itsel ...

Japanese-Canadian are Canadian citizens of Japanese ancestry. Japanese Canadians are mostly concentrated in Western Canada, especially in the province of British Columbia, which hosts the largest Japanese community in the country with the majority of them livin ...

author

Joy Kogawa Joy Nozomi Kogawa (born June 6, 1935) is a Canadian poet and novelist of Japanese descent. Life Kogawa was born Joy Nozomi Nakayama on June 6, 1935, in Vancouver, British Columbia, to first-generation Japanese Canadians Lois Yao Nakayama a ...

. First published by

Lester and Orpen Dennys Lester & Orpen Dennys was a Canadian book publishing company based in Toronto, originally as Lester & Orpen. It operated as a publisher from 1973 to 1991. Writers who published with the company included Graham Greene, P.D. James, June Callwood, ...

in 1981, it chronicles

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

internment Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simpl ...

and

persecution Persecution is the systematic mistreatment of an individual or group by another individual or group. The most common forms are religious persecution, racism, and political persecution, though there is naturally some overlap between these term ...

of its citizens of

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

descent during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

from the perspective of a young child. In 2005, it was the

One Book, One Vancouver 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number representing a single or the only entity. 1 is also a numerical digit and represents a single unit (measurement), unit of counting or measurement. For example, a line segment of ''unit length'' is a line segment ...

selection. The book is often required reading for university English courses on

Canadian literature Canadian literature is the literature of a multicultural country, written in languages including Canadian English, Canadian French, Indigenous languages, and many others such as Canadian Gaelic. Influences on Canadian writers are broad both ge ...

. It also figures in

ethnic studies Ethnic studies, in the United States, is the interdisciplinary study of difference—chiefly race, ethnicity, and nation, but also sexuality, gender, and other such markings—and power, as expressed by the state, by civil society, and by indivi ...

and

Asian-American literature Asian American literature is the body of literature produced in the United States by writers of Asian descent. Asian American literature became a category during the 1970s but didn't see a direct impact in viewership until later in the 1970s. Perha ...

courses in the United States. Kogawa uses strong

imagery Imagery is visual symbolism, or figurative language that evokes a mental image or other kinds of sense impressions, especially in a literary work, but also in other activities such as psychotherapy. Forms There are five major types of sensory ima ...

of silence, stones, and streams throughout the novel. She has many interesting dreams that are carried throughout the novel, as well. Themes depicted in the novel include memory and forgetting, prejudice and tolerance, identity, and justice versus injustice. Kogawa also contemplates many of these themes in her poetry.

Plot

Set in Canada, ''Obasan'' centers on the memories and experiences of Naomi Nakane, a 36-year-old schoolteacher living in the rural Canadian town of

Cecil, Alberta Cecil is a locality in Cypress County, Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the we ...

, when the novel begins. The death of Naomi's uncle, with whom she had lived as a child, leads Naomi to visit and care for her widowed aunt Aya, whom she refers to as Obasan (''obasan'' being the Japanese word for "aunt"). Her brief stay with Obasan in turn becomes an occasion for Naomi to revisit and reconstruct in memory her painful experiences as a child during and after World War II, with the aid of a box of correspondence and journals sent to her by her Aunt Emily, detailing the years of the measures taken by the Canadian government against the Japanese citizens of Canada and their aftereffects. With the aid of Aunt Emily's letters, Naomi learns that her mother, who had been in Japan before the bombing of Pearl Harbor, was severely injured by the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, a finding that changes her perspective of the War in the Pacific, and rekindles the heartbreak she experienced as a child. Naomi's narration thus interweaves two stories, one of the past and another of the present, mixing experience and recollection, history and memory throughout. Naomi's struggle to come to terms with both past and present confusion and suffering form the core of the novel's plot. Although ''Obasan'' is fiction, the events, parliamentary legal documents, and overall notion of racism mirror reality. Through the eyes of fictional characters, Kogawa tells the story of Japanese-Canadians during the war.

Characters

The characters in ''Obasan'' are part of Naomi's Japanese-Canadian family. Its members fall into three major groups, depending on their birthplace, and consequently, nationality. The ''

Issei is a Japanese-language term used by ethnic Japanese in countries in North America and South America to specify the Japanese people who were the first generation to immigrate there. are born in Japan; their children born in the new country are ...

'' are first-generation Japanese-Canadians, Japan-born emigrants living in Canada. Their children are the ''

Nisei is a Japanese-language term used in countries in North America and South America to specify the ethnically Japanese children born in the new country to Japanese-born immigrants (who are called ). The are considered the second generation, ...

'' or second-generation Japanese-Canadians, Canadian-born people with Canadian nationality, and the ''Niseis children, the ''

Sansei is a Japanese and North American English term used in parts of the world such as South America and North America to specify the children of children born to ethnic Japanese in a new country of residence. The ''nisei'' are considered the second g ...

'', or third-generation Japanese-Canadians.Japanese Canadians
/ref>

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Obasan 1981 Canadian novels Canadian historical novels Novels set in Alberta Novels set in Japan Internment of Japanese Canadians Fiction set in 1972 American Book Award-winning works Japanese-Canadian culture Japan in non-Japanese culture