Multiethnic Literatures in the U.S.

Biography

Cynthia Kadohata 

            Cynthia Kadohata was born in Chicago in 1956 to two Japanese-American parents.  However she did not live in Chicago for a very long time.  A few months after she was born, Kadohata’s father got a job in Georgia as a chicken sexer.  Again when Cynthia was two her father found another chicken tenant job in Arkansas.  The years following she moved from Arkansas to Michigan, then back Chicago.  Finally at age fifteen, Kadohata’s family settled in Los Angeles. 

            Originally Kadohata had no plans to become an author while attending high school in LA.  Her dream job in high school was to be an astronaut.  There was one major problem with her dream, she had severe motion sickness.  Cynthia Kadohata finished high school early and started classes at Los Angeles City College.  After Los Angeles City College she attended the University of Southern California, where she received a degree in journalism.         

            A few months after graduating Cynthia Kadohata was hit by a car while crossing the street.  She broke her collarbone and severely damaged her arm and was unable to live on her own.  Cynthia Kadohata went to Boston to live with her sister while she recovered.  Kadohata began writing and submitting her stories to magazines and newspapers while she was healing.  After four long years of writing stories the New Yorker published one of her stories called Charlie O.  Shortly after getting her story published she was discovered by Andrew Wylie. 

            After joining Andrew Wylie, Kadohata grew tremendously as an author.  She wrote her first published novel, The Floating World and many of her other first few novels with Wylie.  He challenged her, even though she would not want to cooperate for the first few times.

            Later on in Kadohata’s career, she wrote her first children’s book, Kira-Kira.  After years of writing adult novels, Cynthia Kadohata was greatly praised for her children’s literature.  In fact, Kadohata won the 2005 John Newbury award for children’s literature.

            Cynthia Kadohata claims that much of her inspiration for her novels comes from her travels, both as a child and as an adult.  Kadohata said “just thinking about the American landscape and focusing on it, puts me in touch with what I think of as real, essential me.  I have to be in touch with the real, essential me whenever I sit down to write.”  Nothing inspires Cynthia Kadohata more than the road.

            Today Cynthia Kadohata is still living in Los Angeles but is making tours around the United States to promote her books.  Kadohata just released two books in the past two years Weedflower and CRACKER! The Best Dog in Vietnam.  Both of these books are children’s novels.

 Bibliography

28 Jan. 2008 <http://www.notablebiographies.com/news/Ge-La/Kadohata-Cynthia.html>.

 28 Jan. 2008 http://www.kira-kira.us/cyn.htm. Bibliography

Cynthia Kadohata Bibliography

• The Floating World (1989)
• In the Heart of the Valley of Love (1992)
• The Glass Mountains (1996)
• Kira-Kira (2004)
• Weedflower (2006)
• Cracker! The Best Dog in Vietnam (2007)

Annotated Bibliography   Works Cited Comer, Krista. “Western Literature At the Cnetury’s End: Sketches in Generation X, Los Angeles, and the Post-Civil Rights Novel.” The Pacific Historical Review 3rd ser. 72 (2003):  405-413. JSTOR. 12 Feb.  This work investigates how the writings of both Cynthia Kadohata and Sandra Ysing Loh comment on politics and culture of the “post-Civil Rights” era.  This work by Comer, in relation to Kadohata, states that she writes about new issues for Japanese Americans.  In particular, the writer describes the “post-internment scramble of Japanese Americans to survive and rebuild their loves” (Comer 408) in Kadohata’s works.  Comer also examines how class warfare, where nonwhites are considered the majority, brings about the “apocalyptic moment” in “In the Heart of the Valley of Love.”  Comer explains the loss of human attachment in Kadohata’s novel.  Comer also writes about the effect of consumer culture on American youth, as reflected in Kadohata’s and Loh’s writings. D’aguiar, Fred. “Review: the Diminutive Epic.” Third World Quarterly 1st ser. 12 (1990):  215-217. JSTOR. 12 Feb. 2008.  This work by D’aguiar discusses the influences of Kadohata’s writing from writers like Kazuo Ishiguro.  He examines the subject matter that is presented in Kadohata’s writing, such as the lives of Japanese Americans and their journey to survive in America. Matsumoto, Valerie. “Review: Pearls and Rocks.” The Women\_Review of Books 2nd ser. 7 (1989):  5-6. JSTOR. 12 Feb. 2008.  This article reviews “The Floating World” by Cynthia Kadohata.  Matsumoto comments on how the immigrant life of Japanese in America is reflected in this novel’s characters and their lives.  She writes about how Katohata shows “the struggles of generations coming to terms with their history.” (Matsumoto 6)

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