Meet the first Japanese American author to publish fiction

Last week, we shared biographies of two Black pioneers whose paths to greatness were marked by World War II.

Today, we have another groundbreaking figure who was affected by the same event.

Toshio Mori, an American citizen with Japanese parents, would eventually become the first Japanese American to publish a book of fiction.

But five days after a publisher set a tentative printing date for the short-story collection Yokohama, California, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, and Mori was among the many Japanese Americans sent to internment camps.

Much to his and his advocates' dismay, publication was delayed for a number of reasons, all of them having to do with Pearl Harbor and the internment camps.

But Yokohama, California did eventually come out in 1949 — with two new stories about the Japanese American experience after the US entered World War II.

Read more about Mori's life and legacy in The Conversation.

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