THE WEAVER OF THE FROST by Nakazawa, Ken - 1927

New York: Harper and Brothers, 1927. First Edition. Hardcover. Good. Perhaps the first book for children written by a Japanese-American writer, a collection of adaptations of Japanese legends and fairytales. Illustrated after line drawings by S. Mizuno. Nakazawa obtained a Ph.D. in English literature from the University of Oregon, and he was the first professor of Japanese descent at a major US institution, teaching at the University of Southern California for sixteen years. He was also a vice-consul with the Japanese Consulate in Los Angeles and gave speeches and wrote articles promoting Japanese culture and politics, particularly the Japanese invasion of China in the late 1930s. For this reason he was on the FBI's list of potential threats and was arrested hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Nakazawa's 1943 book Amerika gokuchu yori doho ni tsugu [Report to My Compatriots from an American Prison] is arguably the first memoir of the Japanese internment. Nakazawa was repatriated to Japan at… Read More