Few outside Brazil know that the country is home to the largest population of Japanese descent outside of Japan, with about 1.6 million people. The Japanese-Brazilian writer Oscar Nakasato, grandchild of Japanese immigrants, fills this gap with the novel “Nihonjin”, winner of the Jabuti Award, the most traditional literary award in Brazil, in 2012. In “Nihonjin”, Nakasato exposes, with a historical approach, the problem of ethnic and cultural identity, while narrating the story of a family of Japanese immigrants in Brazil over three generations, starting in the 1920s. Learn more about the story that created permanent human ties between Brazil and Japan and raises important debates in the contemporary world. Don’t miss Oscar Nakasato’s seminar at the Göteborg Book Fair (September 23rd, at 15:00, room F3)!
Check out the program for seminars on Brazilian literature at the Göteborg Book Fair:https://bokmassan.se/
15.00–15.45
OSCAR NAKASATO
Japan – a desert island on the literary
map of Brazil
Brazilian writer Oscar Nakasato is the great grandson of Japanese immigrants to Brazil. In his debut novel, Nihonjin, he follows a Japanese family through three generations, from the arrival in South America at the beginning of the 20th century and the initial years of slave-like labour in the coffee plantations, to the family’s conflict-ridden life in a bustling São Paulo neighbourhood.
The inspiration for the novel came to Nakasato, who has a PhD in Brazilian literature, when his research made him realise that the culture of
Japanese immigrants was a blank spot on the literary map of Brazil – even though there are nearly
1.6 million people of Japanese ancestry living in the country. Meet him in a conversation with translator
Ulla Gabrielsson about his novel and about culture in exile. Interpretor: Estela Corbellini.
Language: Portuguese with English interpretation.
Japanese immigrants in Brazil(English)
Japanese immigrants’history in Brazil