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KOGAWA AWARDED WOODCOCK AWARD
(Vancouver, B.C.) - Joy Kogawa is the next name to be inscribed onto a commemorative plaque in the Writers' Walk at Vancouver's Library Square honouring recipients of the George Woodcock Lifetime Achievement Award.
Kogawa is the 14th established writer to be honoured for an outstanding literary career related to British Columbia. She will receive the award on April 25 at the newly preserved Historic Joy Kogawa House owned by The Land Conservancy of British Columbia during a national poetry event of original music and poetry.
In addition to being commemorated in the Writer's Walk, Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan will issue a proclamation honouring Kogawa, who also receives a $3,000 award.
Upon learning she was to receive the George Woodcock Lifetime Achievement Award, Kogawa said, "I think it's probably not possible to be more rewarded, more blessed, than I have been. It's bewilderingly, amazingly incomprehensible.";
Kogawa, who lives primarily in Toronto but has maintained a residence in Vancouver, is much honoured both for her writing and civic involvement, particularly in the Japanese-Canadian Redress Movement.
She is a recipient of the Order of British Columbia, a member of the Order of Canada and holds an honorary doctorate from Simon Fraser University.
For her seminal novel Obasan, Kogawa won the Books in Canada First Novel Award, Canadian Authors Association Book of the Year Award and the American Library Association Notable Book Award. Vancouver Public Library chose Obasan as its 2005 One Book, One Vancouver title. Next to Alice Munro, the highest-ranked BC author in Quill & Quire's 1999 survey of English Canadian literature was Kogawa who was ranked 13th for Obasan.
"Joy Kogawa is truly a national literary treasure,"; said Alan Twigg, publisher of BC BookWorld and member of the Woodcock Award committee.
"Obasan is an extremely influential book because it captures and poignantly reflects a painful and damaging event in Canadian history while being truly poetic in its sensibility. And while it is the book that firmly placed Joy Kogawa on Canada's literary landscape, it represents only one aspect of her work. Her full body of work, including two other novels, five books of poetry and two children's books, confirms why she is so deserving of the George Woodcock Lifetime Achievement Award,"; he added.
The City of Vancouver proclaimed November 6, 2004 as Joy Kogawa Day and planted a cherry tree, propagated from one growing in the backyard of the former Kogawa home, on the grounds of City Hall. The effort to purchase and preserve the Kogawa family's former residence at 1450 West 64th Avenue began in 2004 by the Save the Kogawa Homestead Committee and was achieved in April 2006 when the Land Conservancy of British Columbia announced it would purchase the house to prevent demolition and ensure an important piece of Canada's heritage was not lost.
Kogawa's family was among 22,000 Japanese Canadians who were forcibly relocated from the West Coast during World War ll when she was six years old. The family was herded into converted barns on Vancouver's Pacific National Exhibition grounds then sent by train to internment camps in the Slocan area of southeast British Columbia, then to Coaldale, Alberta and later to Saskatchewan and Ontario. Kogawa immersed herself in a major campaign launched by the Japanese-Canadian Redress Movement in the early 1980s. On Sept. 22, 1988, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney signed the Redress Agreement and issued a long-awaited formal apology.
Obasan is a fictionalized account of her family's forced relocation from British Columbia, a theme that recurs in her work including Itsuka that was retitled Emily Kato and a children's book Naomi's Tree.
In 1994, in the aftermath of civic events held to recognize the literary career of celebrated Vancouver writer George Woodcock, BC BookWorld, the City of Vancouver, Vancouver Public Library and the non-profit Pacific BookWorld News Society jointly sponsored and presented an annual prize to a senior BC author whose enduring contribution to the literary arts spans several decades. The initial corporate sponsor was BC Gas, later renamed Terasen. In 2007, the Terasen Lifetime Achievement Award was renamed the George Woodcock Lifetime Achievement Award.
Kogawa is the 14th established writer to be honoured for an outstanding literary career related to British Columbia. She will receive the award on April 25 at the newly preserved Historic Joy Kogawa House owned by The Land Conservancy of British Columbia during a national poetry event of original music and poetry.
In addition to being commemorated in the Writer's Walk, Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan will issue a proclamation honouring Kogawa, who also receives a $3,000 award.
Upon learning she was to receive the George Woodcock Lifetime Achievement Award, Kogawa said, "I think it's probably not possible to be more rewarded, more blessed, than I have been. It's bewilderingly, amazingly incomprehensible.";
Kogawa, who lives primarily in Toronto but has maintained a residence in Vancouver, is much honoured both for her writing and civic involvement, particularly in the Japanese-Canadian Redress Movement.
She is a recipient of the Order of British Columbia, a member of the Order of Canada and holds an honorary doctorate from Simon Fraser University.
For her seminal novel Obasan, Kogawa won the Books in Canada First Novel Award, Canadian Authors Association Book of the Year Award and the American Library Association Notable Book Award. Vancouver Public Library chose Obasan as its 2005 One Book, One Vancouver title. Next to Alice Munro, the highest-ranked BC author in Quill & Quire's 1999 survey of English Canadian literature was Kogawa who was ranked 13th for Obasan.
"Joy Kogawa is truly a national literary treasure,"; said Alan Twigg, publisher of BC BookWorld and member of the Woodcock Award committee.
"Obasan is an extremely influential book because it captures and poignantly reflects a painful and damaging event in Canadian history while being truly poetic in its sensibility. And while it is the book that firmly placed Joy Kogawa on Canada's literary landscape, it represents only one aspect of her work. Her full body of work, including two other novels, five books of poetry and two children's books, confirms why she is so deserving of the George Woodcock Lifetime Achievement Award,"; he added.
The City of Vancouver proclaimed November 6, 2004 as Joy Kogawa Day and planted a cherry tree, propagated from one growing in the backyard of the former Kogawa home, on the grounds of City Hall. The effort to purchase and preserve the Kogawa family's former residence at 1450 West 64th Avenue began in 2004 by the Save the Kogawa Homestead Committee and was achieved in April 2006 when the Land Conservancy of British Columbia announced it would purchase the house to prevent demolition and ensure an important piece of Canada's heritage was not lost.
Kogawa's family was among 22,000 Japanese Canadians who were forcibly relocated from the West Coast during World War ll when she was six years old. The family was herded into converted barns on Vancouver's Pacific National Exhibition grounds then sent by train to internment camps in the Slocan area of southeast British Columbia, then to Coaldale, Alberta and later to Saskatchewan and Ontario. Kogawa immersed herself in a major campaign launched by the Japanese-Canadian Redress Movement in the early 1980s. On Sept. 22, 1988, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney signed the Redress Agreement and issued a long-awaited formal apology.
Obasan is a fictionalized account of her family's forced relocation from British Columbia, a theme that recurs in her work including Itsuka that was retitled Emily Kato and a children's book Naomi's Tree.
In 1994, in the aftermath of civic events held to recognize the literary career of celebrated Vancouver writer George Woodcock, BC BookWorld, the City of Vancouver, Vancouver Public Library and the non-profit Pacific BookWorld News Society jointly sponsored and presented an annual prize to a senior BC author whose enduring contribution to the literary arts spans several decades. The initial corporate sponsor was BC Gas, later renamed Terasen. In 2007, the Terasen Lifetime Achievement Award was renamed the George Woodcock Lifetime Achievement Award.
Submitted on April 11, 2008 in By David.
