Obasan: Book Review I decided to read the novel by Joy Kogawa entitled Obasan. The novel was written in 1981 and told the details of how the Japanese were discriminated against during World War 2. The authors main purpose was to educated the reader on how hard life really was for her family and other Japanese Canadians living in British Columbia, and especially in Vancouver. Joy Kogawa tried to show how ignorant British Columbians really were, and that we still do not fully understand what really happened during the war. She also tries to teach Canadians the culture of the Japanese. The novel starts in the seventies with Naomi a teacher in