Kerri Sakamoto (born 1960 in

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

) is a Canadian novelist. Her novels commonly deal with the experience of

Japanese Canadian are Canadians, Canadian citizens of Japanese people, Japanese ancestry. Japanese Canadians are mostly concentrated in Western Canada, especially in the province of Japanese Canadians in British Columbia, British Columbia, which hosts the largest ...

s. Sakamoto's

debut novel A debut novel is the first novel a novelist publishes. Debut novels are often the author's first opportunity to make an impact on the publishing industry, and thus the success or failure of a debut novel can affect the ability of the author to pu ...

, ''The Electrical Field'' (1998), won the

Commonwealth Writers Prize Commonwealth Foundation has presented a number of prizes since 1987. The main award was called the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and was composed of two prizes: the Best Book Prize (overall and regional) was awarded from 1987 to 2011; the Best First ...

for Best First Book. It also won the Canada Council's biennial Canada-Japan Literary Award and was a finalist for a

Governor General's Award The Governor General's Awards are a collection of annual awards presented by the governor general of Canada, recognizing distinction in numerous academic, artistic, and social fields. The first award was conceived and inaugurated in 1937 by the ...

. Her second novel, ''One Hundred Million Hearts'', was published in 2003. Her books have been published in translation internationally. Her third novel, ''Floating City'', was published by Penguin Random House in March 2018 and reviewed in Rungh magazine. The book was a finalist for the Toronto Book Award and earned her the Canada-Japan Literary Award for the second time. Sakamoto has given talks and readings and has participated in literary festivals in Canada, the United States, Europe and

Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

. Sakamoto is also known as a writer of screenplays and essays on visual art. She co-wrote (with director

Rea Tajiri Rea Tajiri is an American video artist, filmmaker, and screenwriter, known for her personal essay film '' History and Memory: For Akiko and Takashige'' (1991). Early life Tajiri was born in 1958 in Chicago, Illinois. Tajiri's father, Vincent Taj ...

) the screenplay to the 1997 film, ''Strawberry Fields''. She often collaborates with filmmakers as story editor or script editor on narrative, experimental and experimental documentary works. She has also written on visual art for museums and galleries in Canada and the United States, such as the Walter Phillips Gallery at the Banff Fine Arts Centre, the

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is a Modern art, modern and Contemporary art, contemporary American art museum located in the Meatpacking District, Manhattan, Meatpacking District and West Village neighbor ...

, and the

Honolulu Museum of Contemporary Art Honolulu ( ; ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, located in the Pacific Ocean. It is the county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the island of Oʻahu, ...

. In 2004, she contributed a catalogue essay on the work of Painters Eleven abstract expressionist

Kazuo Nakamura Kazuo Nakamura was a Japanese-Canadian painter and sculptor (born Vancouver October 13, 1926; died Toronto April 9, 2002) and a founding member of the Toronto-based Painters Eleven group in the 1950s. Among the first major Japanese Canadian arti ...

for an exhibition at the

Art Gallery of Ontario The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO; ) is an art museum in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Located on Dundas Street, Dundas Street West in the Grange Park (neighbourhood), Grange Park neighbourhood of downtown Toronto, the museum complex takes up of phys ...

. In 2005, Sakamoto was appointed the Barker Fairley Distinguished Visitor at the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university whose main campus is located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was founded by ...

, and a member of the Toronto Arts Council in 2007. She has also served as a member of the Canadian jury at the Toronto international Film Festival. In 2020 she was named the winner of the Writers' Trust Engel/Findley Award, a career achievement award for the recipient's body of work presented by the

Writers' Trust of Canada The Writers' Trust of Canada () is a registered charity which provides financial support to Canadian writers. Founded by Margaret Atwood, Pierre Berton, Graeme Gibson, Margaret Laurence, and David Young (Canadian playwright), David Young; the W ...

.Ryan Porter
"Writers’ Trust honours four career authors with $25,000 prizes"
''

Quill & Quire ''Quill & Quire'' is a Canadian magazine about the book and publishing industry. The magazine was launched in 1935 and has an average circulation of 5,000 copies per issue, with a publisher-claimed readership of 25,000. ''Quill & Quire'' reviews ...

'', December 2, 2020.

Bibliography

*''The Electrical Field''. Toronto: Knopf Canada, 1998. *''One Hundred Million Hearts''. Toronto: Knopf Canada, 2003. *''Floating City''. Toronto: Knopf Canada, 2018.

References

External links

*
Entry
at Encyclopedia of Asian-American Literature {{DEFAULTSORT:Sakamoto, Kerri 20th-century Canadian novelists 21st-century Canadian novelists Canadian people of Japanese descent 1959 births Living people Canadian women novelists Canadian writers of Asian descent 20th-century Canadian women writers 21st-century Canadian women writers