Gently to Nagasaki: A Spiritual Pilgrimage, an Exploration Both Communal and Intensely Personal - Softcover

"Gently to Nagasaki ultimately offers a sobering treatise on the nature of some wounds: we can carry them with us long after their surface has healed and the pain they cause might never fully disappear."
-- Brett Grubisic, Macleans

"Experimental in style, incorporating fragments of poetry, letters and journal writing, Gently to Nagasaki encompasses a wide variety of topics ranging from Christianity and Japanese history to climate change and nuclear power. It sometimes reads less like a memoir than a collection of loosely interwoven essays."
-- Leslie Shimotakahara, The National Post

Joy Kogawa, one of North America's most celebrated writers, is the award-winning author of three novels, seven collections of poetry and two books for children. Obasan, which the New York Times called "a tour de force...brilliantly poetic in its sensibility," continues to be taught across North America, and the opera based on her children's book Naomi's Road has toured in Canada and the United States. Kogawa has worked to educate Canadians about the history of Japanese Canadians and is a long-time activist in the areas of peace and reconciliation. In 2010, the Japanese government honoured her with the Order of the Rising Sun.