Hello everyone,

These past few weeks, we have been reading Joy Kogawa’s Obasan in our ASTU class. Obasan is a historical fiction novel about the experience of Japanese-Canadians during World War II from the eyes of Naomi, the narrator who looks back to her childhood memories of this event. Last week we went with my ASTU class to the UBC archives in the Irving K. Barber Learning Center. It is a beautiful place that holds within its walls the answers to questions we often philosophize about when we read, such as what was the author’s view on a certain character. We often question the choices and the background of the author and in the archives last week I found more about Joy Kogawa than any number of Wikipedia searches could have provided. In the archives, the Joy Kogawa Fond contain documents that she donated and these include drafts of the book, notes and outlines, letters from editors, and letters from readers, including Prime Minister Trudeau, among others.

In class and in general, we study Joy Kogawa and her work and in the process of studying her, I have come to notice, we idealize her and view her as someone who wrote a priceless and amazing novel. In the archives, I found a letter from a publisher and you may see the image of said letter below.

Reading this letter, I came to view Kogawa as a normal author, who like every other author who wishes to be published, was criticized and rejected. Her work is, without a doubt amazing and compelling, but it is not perfect and this is something that I had to be reminded of with this document. The publisher who wrote this letter after reading Kogawa’s book told her that he would like her to revise certain elements of the novel and resubmit it for them to consider publishing it or that she should send it to other publishers for their opinion. He also argues that, “The reader isn’t really ever aware of a story-with a focused storyline- being told: there isn’t enough emphasis on key elements that constitute a novel” (Engineer). He then goes on to state that “there should be a clearer picture of Nomi. There’s never any strong sense of her as a person” (Engineer). He finds many flaws in this version of Obasan, flaws that I would strongly disagree with. Although I am not certain if the version he looked at is the same as the one that ended up being published, his judgments towards Kogawa’s work are not something I would not have though of had it not been for this letter.

Reading this letter, I realized that in rejection letters, the tone of the publisher or editor is similar to that portrayed by a professor grading a student’s paper, where the goal is to help the writer improve style and content but these messages are often received with drops of bitterness and sorrow. After thinking it over I found that although Obasan is an amazing novel that has been acclaimed by many, it can and was criticized as any other piece of writing can be.

Thank you for reading and I hope you have a great day!

Andrea Barraza

Works Cited

Engineer, Dilshad. Letter from Dilshad Engineer to Joy Kogawa. 31 October 1980. Box 11 File 1. Joy Kogawa fonds. University of British Columbia Library Rare Books and Special Collections, Vancouver, Canada.

Hello!

These past two weeks in my ASTU class, we have been reading Joe Sacco’s graphic narrative Safe Area Goražde, where Sacco presents his experiences and the stories that were told to him by the people who lived through the Bosnian War in Goražde. In the book, Sacco is the character that connects all the stories and serves as our representative within that location as he inserts himself as our link to a town and group of people that had been locked out of the reach of the rest of the world. Sacco emphasized the difference between himself and the other journalists that got access into Goražde through the U.N. convoys, or what he refers to as The Blue Road. He places himself within the novel to show us that what he is attempting to convey is the single or “Real Truth” but is instead his memory and the interpretation of the memories of the people that shared their stories with him.

One of the ways in which Sacco is viewed as different from the other journalists is his connection to the people because, while the journalists that came by day treated the people as a source of news and good pictures that would sell, Sacco saw them and lived with them as fellow human beings. In page 131 we see two frames at the top of the page, on the left is a journalist that focused on the efficient and cheap coverage throwing candy at faceless children as he shoots a picture. Next to that image, we see Sacco walking next to children who ask him for candy but he treats them as people.

The fact that these are images and not just words makes Sacco’s message incredibly stronger and more powerful because he is forcing us to see the events through his eyes. These images undeniably show a strong contrast between the other journalist and himself. Personally, when I first encountered the frame of the journalist throwing candy at the children I was outraged and felt insulted by the actions of this man who was treating the children as one would throw food at the ground so that birds fly in and we may take their picture up close. Sacco’s portrayal of the people in Goražde makes us, as readers, feel a close connection to them and when faced with this image, I was quite shocked.

In Sociology we are studying how people’s knowledge of the world and its norms is becoming increasingly dependent on the media and what the media says is normal.  As Sacco points out throughout the book, the role of journalists is one of high power as the way they tell a story is usually the way in which people will go on to remember it. If journalists like himself dig deep into events, these events will be seen through less biased and clearer perspectives but if all the information we get is coming from journalists like the one throwing candy to get the children’s attention then I worry about how reliable the media really is.

Thanks for reading and I hope you have a great day!

Andrea Barraza

Sacco, Joe. Safe Area Goražde. Seattle, WA: Fantagraphics, 2000. Print.