Joy Kogawa Writers Centre

[Anton Wagner]

On November 3, two weeks before a civic election, Vancouver City Council 
unanimously passed a four-month demolition delay order for Joy Kogawa?s 
childhood home that inspired her classic novel Obasan. The 120-day period gives 
the Save Kogawa House Committee time to organize a national fundraising drive 
to convert the house into a major writers-in-residence centre for Canadian and 
international writers.  

For Kogawa, the West 64th Avenue home became a symbol of lost hope and 
happiness after Joy, then six years old, and her family were removed from the 
house in 1942 as part of the forced evacuations and internment of 21,000 
Japanese-Canadians during World War II. The house is the central image in 
Obasan, its sequel about the redress movement, Itsuka, and the children?s story 
Naomi's Road, which is now touring as a Vancouver Opera production to 140 
schools and community centres throughout B.C.

The writers? organizations supporting converting Kogawa House into a writers-in-
residence centre include the Writers Union of Canada, the League of Canadian 
Poets, the Federation of BC Writers, the Playwrights Guild of Canada, the 
Canadian Authors Association, the Periodical Writers Association of Canada, PEN 
Canada, the Vancouver International Writers and Readers Festival, the Canadian 
Society of Children?s Authors, and the Asian Canadian Writers Workshop. The 
project has also been endorsed by Heritage Vancouver, the National Nikkei 
Museum and Heritage Centre, and the National Association of Japanese Canadians. 

The Save Kogawa House Committee is looking for one thousand individuals to 
donate $100 each for the Joy Kogawa Writers-in-Residence Centre but would of 
course greatly welcome donations of all sizes. The Committee is also targeting 
corporations and foundations for $100,000 each and the federal government for 
$350,000. 

Donations can be made through the Vancouver Heritage Foundation which has 
established a Kogawa house rescue fund and will issue charitable receipts. All 
donations to the rescue fund receive a tax receipt for the full amount of the 
donation. Cheques should be made out to ?Vancouver Heritage Foundation? and 
mailed to the Vancouver Heritage Foundation, 844 West Hastings St., Vancouver, 
B.C. V6C 1C8. Please mark the cheque memo line: ?Save Kogawa House.? Donations 
can also be made on-line on the Vancouver Heritage Foundation?s website 
http://www.vancouverheritagefoundation.org/Kogawa.html

More information about the writers? and other organizations supporting the Joy 
Kogawa Writers-in-Residence Centre can be found on the website 
http://www.kogawahouse.com Thank you for your support.

Anton Wagner
Secretary
Save Kogawa House Committee
416-863 1209
awagner at yorku.ca