Citizen 13660

Mine Okubo was one of more than a hundred thousand people of Japanese descent - nearly two-thirds of whom were American citizens - who were forced into "protective custody" shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Citizen 13660, Okubo's illustrated memoir of life in relocation centers in California and Utah, illuminates this experience with poignant drawings and witty, candid text. This classic in Asian American literature and American history, with a new introduction by Christine Hong, is available for the first time in both a traditional paperback format and an artist's edition, oversize and in hardcover to better illustrate the innovative artwork as originally envisioned by Okubo. "[Mine Okubo] took her months of life in the concentration camp and made it the material for this amusing, heartbreaking book. . . . The moral is never expressed, but the wry pictures and the scanty words make the reader laugh - and if he is an American too - blush." - Pearl Buck "A remarkably objective and vivid and even humorous account. . . . In dramatic and detailed drawings and brief text, [Okubo] documents the whole episode . . . all that she saw, objectively, yet with a warmth of understanding." - New York Times Book Review