Shortlisted for Canada Reads 2018!

During World War II, Mark Sakamoto's grandfather Ralph MacLean found himself one of the many Canadians captured by the Japanese in December 1941. He lived out the war in a prison camp, enduring torture and starvation, and watching his friends and countrymen die all around him. Meanwhile, Sakamoto's grandmother Mitsue Sakamoto and her family were ordered out of their Vancouver home and confined to a work farm in rural Alberta, later losing all of their possessions to fire. 

Forgiveness intertwines the stories of Ralph MacLean and Mitsue Sakamoto as the war rips their lives and their humanity out of their grasp—but does not destroy their capacity to forgive.

Selected praise for Forgiveness:

“Poignantly elegant.” (Maclean’s)

“Through stories of starvation and suffering, outright racism and imprisonment, Sakamoto offers a distinct and dark vantage point to Canadian history--one that does away with any geopolitical binaries of good and evil.” (The Globe and Mail)

“An unforgettable story about the power of forgiveness, set against one of the darkest periods in Canada’s history. Mark Sakamoto tells his family’s story with grace and at times brutal honesty. Painful and poignant, Forgiveness is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit.” (Mellissa Fung, author of Under an Afghan Sky)