Posted at 9:21 a.m., Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Internment book's launch set for Dec. 1
Advertiser Staff
One of the few first-person accounts of the Japanese internment experience in Hawaii, first published in Japanese in 1948, will be released next month in an English-language edition.Yasutaro Soga's "Life Behind Barbed Wire: The World War II Memoirs of a Hawaii Issei" will be published by University of Hawaii Press.
The Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii will hold a release party from 10 a.m. to noon Dec. 1 to mark the occasion. The book was translated by Kihei Hirai, a center volunteer.
Soga was publisher of the Nippu Jiji newspaper, one of the most widely read Japanese language newspapers in Hawaii prior to World War II.
Soga, who was 68 years old when he was arrested and interned in Hawaii, kept a meticulous journal of his experiences.
The center is located at 2454 S. Beretania St.
