Obasan (Cyclopedia of Literary Places)
At a glance:
- Author: Joy Kogawa
- First Published: 1981
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Historical realism
- Time of Work: 1972, with flashbacks to the 1940’s
- Genres: Long fiction, Psychological fiction, Social realism, Domestic realism, Historical fiction
- Subjects: Maturation or coming of age, 1970’s, Family or family life, Mothers, Parents and children, Racism, 1940’s, World War II, Oppression, Canada or Canadians, Asian Americans, Atomic bomb, Japan or Japanese people, Japanese Americans
- Locales: Alberta, Canada, Vancouver, Canada, Nagasaki, Japan
Places Discussed
*Vancouver. Largest city in British Columbia that was home to many Japanese Canadians before World War II. Schoolteacher Naomi Nakane’s grandparents came to Canada from Japan in 1893, and she herself was born in Vancouver in 1936 and has lived there happily through her first six years in a large and beautiful house on West 64th Avenue in the Marpole district.
In 1972—the time present of Obasan—the thirty-six-year-old Naomi remembers the house vividly: its living and music rooms, her father’s study, the kitchen, the playroom, the backyard....
[The entire page is 974 words long]
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