Wakako Yamauchi, Japanese-American Writer Imprisoned During WW II

From the September 14, 2018, Chicago Tribune by Emily Langer, Washington Post.

(1924-2018)

Wakako Yamauchi was living behind barbed wire, poring over books in a tar paper-covered barrack that doubled as a library when she discovered the depth of her love of literature.

She was at the time a 17-year-old Nisei, or first generation Japanese-American confined with her family to the Poston Internment camp in Arizona.  They were among the 120,000 Japanese and Japanese-Americans imprisoned by the U.S. government in such centers during World War II.

Her most famous work was "And the Soul Shall Dance" which grew from her youth as the daughter of itinerant migrant  farmers in California.  The work is sometimes described as a Japanese "Grapes of Wrath."

--GreGen