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Author to speak on forgiveness to Slocan Valley audiences

Kogawa on tour as part of Convergence writer’s festival
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This year Joy Kogawa is the headliner at the annual Convergence Writers’ Weekend in Silverton. Photo submitted

Famed Canadian novelist and memoirist Joy Kogawa will give a series of talks on the theme of forgiveness in Nelson, Kaslo, New Denver and Silverton over the next week.

Kogawa is the author of the 1981 Canadian classic novel Obasan, based on the author’s internment at Slocan, during World War II. Kogawa is a member of the Order of Canada and Order of British Columbia. In 2010 she received the Japanese government’s Order of the Rising Sun for her contribution to preserving Japanese-Canadian history.

This year Kogawa is the headliner at the annual Convergence Writers’ Weekend in Silverton. She will speak on the theme of Writing Toward Forgiveness on Friday at 7 p.m. at the Silverton Gallery. Her talk is open to the public as well as Convergence registrants.

Kogawa’s three other talks are on the theme of the Journey Toward Forgiveness. She will speak at 2 p.m. on Saturday at the Nikkei Internment Memorial Centre in New Denver. And on Monday, June 10, she will talk at Kaslo’s Langham Centre, at 7 p.m.

The focus of Kogawa’s West Kootenay talks will be her most recent book, the 2016 memoir Gently to Nagasaki. The Vancouver Sun’s Douglas Todd called the book “a mature work of history and spirituality, bravely detailing the intersection between mass global evils and those perpetrated intimately by members of one’s own family.

“Kogawa’s memoir deeply explores how denial works in regards to racism, paedophilia, nuclear power, Canadian internment camps and Japanese war atrocities,” Todd said.

SEE: Convergence Writers’ Weekend in Silverton

This year’s Convergence includes workshops by Slocan Valley author Leesa Dean, who teaches writing at Selkirk College, and by Fernie author, ski journalist and workshop leader Keith Liggett.