Box of Memories
How Forgotten Documents, a Koseki, and a WWII Diary Led to a Journey into the Past of One Japanese-Canadian Family
When: Monday, August 28, 7:30pm
Where: Historic Joy Kogawa House
When Masayuki Yano died in Toronto in 1989 at the age of 80, he left behind a hand-made cedar box, which contained personal papers and objects, including photographs, a blanket from an internment camp, a document that was his mother’s koseki (Japanese household register), and his diary, begun January 1, 1928, and completed shortly after the end of WWII. Together, these items form a unique legacy.
Very few pre-World War II primary Japanese-Canadian documents, such as diaries, have survived. Masayuki Yano’s 88-year old diary provides a rare first-hand glimpse into one man’s experiences and thoughts as a Japanese immigrant to BC just prior to WWII.
Asked to translate the diary by the Yano family, Jean-Pierre Antonio’s research took him on an unexpected journey into Masayuki Yano’s past and introduced him to the fascinating and illusive woman who was mistress to a samurai, land-owner in her own right, and Masayuki Yano’s mother.
Jean-Pierre Antonio teaches English at Suzuka University in Japan and has lived in Japan for 28 years. He grew up on Vancouver Island and maintains connections to British Columbia and an interest in Nikkei history in Canada. He has been working on a translation of the diary of Masayuki Yano, a Japanese immigrant, who arrived in BC in 1928, along with his translation partner Michiko Kihira. Some of the translation was published in British Columbia History Magazine, Fall 2015.
Jude Neale’s new poetry collection launch
Splendid in Its Silence
When: Wednesday, August 30, 7:30pm
Where: Historic Joy Kogawa House
“The world of Jude Neale’s poems is a place of luminous moments where a careful intelligence is surprised by emotional depths.”
—Jack Hodgins, Spit Delanry‘s Island, The Invention of the World
Jude Neale is a Canadian poet, vocalist, spoken-word performer, and mentor. Author of The Perfect Word Collapses, Only the Fallen Can See, A Quiet Coming of Light, and Line by Line, her new collection, Splendid in Its Silence, was published in the U.K. in April 2017. One of the poems in the collection was chosen by Britain’s Poet Laureate to ride with thirty three other winners around the Channel Islands on public transit for a year, and Jude was a featured reader at the Guernsey International Literary Festival in May 2016.
Jude’s previous book, A Quiet Coming of Light: A Poetic Memoir (leaf press), was a finalist for the 2015 Pat Lowther Memorial Award. Eight of its poems were shortlisted for the Magpie Award, judged by George McWhirter, Vancouver’s first Poet Laureate, and two of its poems were nominated for the coveted Pushcart Prize (U.S.) by two different publishers.
“Jude Neale possesses an arresting voice that gives the ache and awe of our ordinary lives an incantatory eloquence.”
—Betsy Warland, Oscar of Between: A Memoir of Identity and Ideas
Please join us for this evening reading and book signing.
To reserve your seat for one or both of these events, please RSVP info@kogawahouse.com