Post by Todd Wong
Seventeen Alcuin Society members and their guests participated in the first of a new series of members-only meetings on March 30th at the historic Joy Kogawa heritage house in Marpole.
Kogawa House Committee member Ann-Marie Metten started the evening by explaining the series of successful steps that were taken to save the historic house from demolition. Future plans are to return the house to its original condition and then to offer the house as a place of retreat for writers of conscience from around the world.
Richard Hopkins then spoke of Joy Kogawa’s considerable literary achievements in the areas of fiction, poetry, and children’s literature. Joy’s books were available for members to examine after the presentations.
The definite highlight of the evening, however, was a reading by Joy herself from her award winning novel Obasan. The reading had particular resonance for the audience since Joy continuously referred to places mentioned in the novel that were right before the audience’s eyes.
After the reading, she spoke with incredible energy and passion about the Japanese internment during the Second World War and all of the hardship and suffering that that injustice caused so many Japanese families and the Japanese community in Canada as a whole.
Fortunately, some reparation for these wrongs has occurred in the form of Federal Government redress and in the saving of the Kogawa house itself. All of the audience members felt at the end of the evening that they had received a rare privilege in being able to hear Joy read and speak her own moving personal experience.