Comments from Back Cover
"In 1942 much was summarily taken from Japanese Americans: their liberty, their property, their right to equal protection under the law. No one, however, could take from them their integrity, their family unity, their capacity to prevail, or, as this book shows, their ability to bear witness through the prisms of memory and art to what was being done to them. Here now, from one master artist, are the on-the-scene images of isolation and loneliness-and the special transcendence that comes when beauty points to a larger hope."
Dr. Kevin Starr,
State Librarian of California
"Topaz Moon reveals the depth of Chiura Obata's artistic achievement. His words and art capture the tumultuous period of the Japanese American incarceration."
Karin Higa, Senior Curator of Art,
Japanese American National Museum
"Obata's images - lyrical, harsh, haunting, evocative - give us the stories words can't tell."
Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston,
author, Farewell to Manzanar
Back to the Top
Background on Kimi Kodani Hill
Kimi Kodani Hill began researching the lives of her grandparents, Chiura and Haruko Obata, in 1985, eventually assuming the role of family historian. Since 1993, she has presented numerous slide lectures on her grandfather's life and work. She has also served as a consultant for an exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution on the Japanese American internment. A graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, and the California College of Arts and Crafts, Oakland, she currently lives in Berkeley.
Back to the Top
