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

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.

“One of the most important memoirs in recent Canadian literature. It brings together personal and political anguish and washes them with words and the waters of mercy.”
―Mary Jo Leddy, CM, Canadian writer, speaker, theologian and social activist

“In her truth telling of both personal and communal events that brought shame, betrayal, anger and suffering into her own life as well as into many Japanese lives, she strikes a cord that resonates with the reader in our shared experience of what it means to be human. But rather than leaving the reader in the slough of despond, she also addresses the healing qualities of reconciliation, trust and thanksgiving. Her story ends with the image of a cleansing and abundant waterfall―a sure symbol of hope and joy.”
― The Very Reverend and Honourable Lois Wilson

“Joy Kogawa treats her intensely confessional spiritual journey through the intimately personal and prophetically public subjects in this book. ... With the life-long prolific and poetic writings behind her, she brings this memoir to the world as she shares her eventful earth journey that is her spiritual home.”
― Fumitaka Matsuoka, Author and Professor of Theology at Pacific School of Religion and the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, California