Requiem - Hardcover

Bin Okuma, a celebrated visual artist, has quite suddenly lost his beloved wife, Lena. He and his son, Greg, are left to deal with the shock. But Greg must return to his studies on the East Coast, and Bin finds himself alone in ways he has never imagined. Trying to pull together an exhibition of his art, he is drawn into painful memories he has avoided for much of his life.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Bin’s Japanese Canadian family was uprooted from the west coast of Vancouver Island and transported to an internment camp in the mountains. They spent almost five years there, struggling against poverty and shame. Now, many years later, Bin drives across the country to revisit the places that have shaped him and to see his estranged father. But does he really want to reunite with the man who abandoned him and separated him from his mother? With the persuasive voice of his wife in his head and the echo of their love in his heart, Bin embarks on an unforgettable journey, one that encompasses art and music, love and hope, loss and redemption. 

Frances Itani has created a spellbinding novel of extraordinary beauty, an elegiac yet intimate story of a family caught in the arc of history. 

FRANCES ITANI, a Member of the Order of Canada, had a spectacular international debut with her first novel, Deafening, which received a Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best Book (Canada and Caribbean Region) and was shortlisted for the 2005 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award; it was a #1 bestseller in Canada. Her second novel, Remembering the Bones, was shortlisted for a Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. Itani’s short story collection, Poached Egg on Toast, won the 2005 Ottawa Book Award and the 2005 CAA Jubilee Award for Short Stories. Itani lives in Ottawa.