The Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan (FCCJ) Library is pleased to announce the upcoming Book Break event.


FCCJ Book Break July 18. 18:15. "World War II Revisited: Two POWs, Two Sides, Two Stories"
Speaker : Karen Ann Takizawa
Wednesday, July 18, 2018 from 6:15 pm to 8:30 pm
(The talk will be in English)


Admission: 3,500yen (non-members) / 2,100yen (FCCJ members)
*The price covers a set dinner.
Please sign up by email (front@fccj.or.jp) and pay in advance by Thursday, July 12.


Venue:
The Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan
Yurakucho Denki North Building 20F
Yurakucho 1-7-1, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, 100-0006


In this book, the post-war generation looks back on the experiences of two extended family members who were Prisoners of War (POWs) on opposite sides of the conflict in World War II. One was a middle-aged American surgeon in the US Navy Medical Corps who was captured in the Philippines in 1942, survived a voyage on hellships to Japan, and was released from a Japanese POW camp in Manchuria when the war ended in 1945. The other was a young Japanese soldier in the Imperial Japanese Army who was captured on Saipan in 1944 and spent the last year of the war in an American POW camp in Wisconsin, in the U.S. Their stories show sharp contrasts, as the treatment of the POWs in Japanese camps was harsh; whereas, in American camps the treatment of the POWs accorded with the guidelines set down in the Geneva Convention of 1929.



In addition to their stories, visits to places where these two men were during the war and information about the 1947 war crimes trial of the Japanese who oversaw the draft of POWs on the hellships were added to put the stories in context and to let the next generation know that war is neither glorious nor does it end when the fighting stops.


Karen Ann Takizawa, whose grandfather is one of the two POWs featured in this book, has lived in Japan since 1973. She moved to Tokyo in 2002, and in 2017 she retired from her position as professor in the Faculty of Social Sciences at Hosei University. The other POW featured in the book is the uncle of her husband and co-author, Kenzo Takizawa, who retired from his position as professor in the Faculty of Education at Hakuoh University in 2016. The authors have a long-time interest in this topic, first publishing a book for the Japanese market in 1999 and then, after further research, publishing this expanded and updated version in English in 2015.


The library committee is offering a cocktail party-"Meet the Author"-starting at 6:15 pm, followed by dinner at 6:45 pm (Menu: TBD). Drinks can be ordered on a cash basis from the bar in the room. Book Break charges are 2,100yen / 3,500yen (members / non-members) per person. The member price is applicable to members' guests.



*To FCCJ members*: Sign up now at the reception desk (03-3211-3161) or on the FCCJ website. To help us plan proper seating and food preparation, please reserve in advance, preferably by noon of the day of the event. Those without reservations will be turned away once available seats are filled. Reservations cancelled less than 24 hours in advance will be charged in full.



*To non-members*: Sign up now at the reception desk by email (front@fccj.or.jp). Please reserve and pay in advance *by Thursday, July 12th*. Those without reservations will be turned away once available seats are filled. No refund is available unless the event is cancelled for the reasons on our part.


FCCJ Book Breaks
http://www.fccj.or.jp/events-calendar/book-breaks