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Obasan Joy Kogawa Books

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Obasan Joy Kogawa Books

Obasan, by Joy Kogawa is a breathtaking, heart-wrenching novel about the Japanese internment in Canada during World War II. This novel, told through the eyes of Naomi Nakane, begins with the death of her uncle. As she thinks back on all of the time she spent with her uncle and Obasan, which means aunt in Japanese, she remembers the events of her childhood during the war. She remembers her mother who went to Japan right before the war and never returned, her father who died of tuberculosis in the camp, her paternal grandparents who also died in the camps, her maternal grandparents who died in Japan during the bombings, and her many friends that she never saw again. Throughout this haunting story she tells of the horrible conditions that she and her family were forced to live in and the way that they were treated by the white Canadian population. Despite being Canadian citizens themselves, they were shunned by the rest of society simply because of their background and skin tone. The author, a Japanese Canadian who was interned during the war herself, shows how unjust and inhumane the treatment of these people was. This novel is extremely enlightening, showing its readers just what life was like in these camps. Many people try to gloss over this period in history and forget the horrible things that happened, but this novel and its depictions of this side of the war will stay with me and remind me how humans can turn on one another in times of fear and war. It serves as a reminder that though people are of the same nationality as those who do harm, they are not to be blamed for their country’s actions. I would give this novel a five star rating because of how engaging and heart-wrenching it was. It is not a book that you can put down once you have picked it up.


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Obasan Joy Kogawa Books Reviews

Joy Kogawa's Obasan opened me up to a history I barely even knew existed--that of the Japanese Canadians during WWII. I initially assumed, like most people I've spoken to, that the US's treatment of Japanese at this time was far worse than the Canadian treatment. I was wrong. While the Japanese Americans were protected by our Bill of Rights, the Japanese Canadians had no such constitutional protections. Unlike in the US, the Japanese Canadians' land was seized and sold by the government, they were forced to pay for their own food and housing once interned, families were broken up, and, perhaps the worst part, they weren't allowed to return to the coast of British Columbia until 1949, a full 4 years after the end of WWII.

Kogawa's Obasan tells the story of the Japanese Canadians through the eyes of Naomi, who was a young child at the time, and her aunt. Kogawa uses various narratives, including Naomi as an adult struggling with her tragic past, Naomi's memories from her childhood, her aunt's diary entries from the 40s, and various government letters. I'm not much of a historical fiction person, but I found this novel so interesting, probably because it's so real--Joy Kogawa is a Nisei, or a second generation Japanese Canadian, and Obasan is based on her own experiences. I loved the varying perspectives, and had little trouble distinguishing between them--Kogawa pieced the different narratives together beautifully to create a poetic and haunting novel.

This is by no means a fast novel, but I found it continuously engaging and beautiful. It is worth taking your time to read. I unfortunately had to read it in 2 days for class, but I really wish I had been able to spend longer on this deep, moving, and heartbreaking piece of literature. While it is not a book I would ever have even thought of reading if it weren't for my class, I am so glad I got the chance to read it and learn from it.
Joy Kogawa does an amazing job as an author in titling the book as Obasan, a respectful term for “aunt” in Japanese. While in the novel our protagonist seems to only call Uncle Sam’s wife “obasan,” there is another aunt that displays as much influence on Naomi as Obasan does, but in a quite opposite manner. Obasan is all about silence and little words. Obasan responds to most events with silence or a small set of “barely audible” words “Everyone someday dies” (14). As a reader, I was initially frustrated with the small number of words that came out of both Uncle Sam and Obasan’s mouths and wondered how Naomi endured it. The two relatives did not seem to answer simple questions from the protagonist and for several chapters, I continuously wondered, “Why?” Kogawa reveals that silence is Obasan’s go to in response to pain and suffering. Uncle’s death was not responded with loud sobbing of anguish, but rather expressed with silence and acceptance of the fact that “Everyone someday dies.” Obasan, who has also experienced the racial prejudice, got property taken and liquidated by the Canadian government, and saw relatives torn from family, does not speak out. She believes that the past’s sufferings are meant to be forgotten, unlike Aunt Emily. Aunt Emily is another obasan, but is addressed as Aunt Emily. Aunt Emily would probably resort to silence as the very last response to the pain and injustice done to Japanese-Canadians. She believes that anger must be “passed down in [their] genes,” and that “the past is in the future.” If one resorts to silence, the pain will come again, because it was never fought back against in the past. Naomi’s interactions with the words of both her obasans not only revealed that the two aunts are an obvious foil for each other, but also created a lasting impact on the protagonist, Naomi Nakane. What made Obasan just short of 5 stars may have been my fault as a weak reader. While I admired the precise detail and culture that Kogawa had woven so intricately into the novel, Obasan’s general structure is quite unique, because instead of narrating as one tells a simple story to another, this novel is a continuous train of thought stationed in Naomi Nakane’s mind. I personally found this “train of thought” as a hurdle that made it difficult for me go back and forth between character to character and between flashbacks to the present time. However, due amidst the mazes of thoughts running through Naomi’s mind, I felt personally more connected, sympathetic, and even empathetic to Naomi and her family’s experiences. Even if I was not present during the times of prejudice that spanned America and Canada during and after WWII, Joy Kogawa successfully communicates the pain and suffering of Japanese-Canadians during the war through the silence of Obasan and the outspoken nature of Aunt Emily, who are both obasans to Naomi Nakane.
Obasan, by Joy Kogawa is a breathtaking, heart-wrenching novel about the Japanese internment in Canada during World War II. This novel, told through the eyes of Naomi Nakane, begins with the death of her uncle. As she thinks back on all of the time she spent with her uncle and Obasan, which means aunt in Japanese, she remembers the events of her childhood during the war. She remembers her mother who went to Japan right before the war and never returned, her father who died of tuberculosis in the camp, her paternal grandparents who also died in the camps, her maternal grandparents who died in Japan during the bombings, and her many friends that she never saw again. Throughout this haunting story she tells of the horrible conditions that she and her family were forced to live in and the way that they were treated by the white Canadian population. Despite being Canadian citizens themselves, they were shunned by the rest of society simply because of their background and skin tone. The author, a Japanese Canadian who was interned during the war herself, shows how unjust and inhumane the treatment of these people was. This novel is extremely enlightening, showing its readers just what life was like in these camps. Many people try to gloss over this period in history and forget the horrible things that happened, but this novel and its depictions of this side of the war will stay with me and remind me how humans can turn on one another in times of fear and war. It serves as a reminder that though people are of the same nationality as those who do harm, they are not to be blamed for their country’s actions. I would give this novel a five star rating because of how engaging and heart-wrenching it was. It is not a book that you can put down once you have picked it up.