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Roy Akira Miki, CM OBC FRSC (10 October 1942 – 5 October 2024) was a Canadian poet, scholar, editor, and activist most known for his social and literary work.
Roy Miki | |
|---|---|
| Born | 10 October 1942 Ste. Agathe, Manitoba, Canada |
| Died | 5 October 2024 (aged 81) |
| Occupation | Poet, scholar, editor, and activist |
| Nationality | Canadian |
| Education | University of Manitoba (B.A.)
Simon Fraser University (M.A.) University of British Columbia (Ph.D.) |
| Notable awards | |
Born in Ste. Agathe, Manitoba to second generation Japanese-Canadian parents, Miki grew up on a sugar beet farm before moving to Winnipeg.[1][2][3] His family was forcibly relocated West to Manitoba where he was born in 1942 on said sugar beet farm, and interned during the Second World War.[1] He earned his B.A. from the University of Manitoba, M.A. from the Simon Fraser University, and Ph.D. from the University of British Columbia.[1][4] Miki taught contemporary literature at Simon Fraser University before retiring and held the title of professor emeritus.[1] He lived in Vancouver. In the 1980s, Miki was "instrumental" in fighting for redress from the federal government for the internment of Japanese-Canadians during the Second World War.[2][4]
In 2002, Miki's book of poetry, Surrender, won the Governor General's Literary Award for poetry.[4] His poetry focuses on questions about identity, citizenship, race, and place.[4] He is the author of the critical study, Broken Entries: Race, Subjectivity, Writing (1998), In Flux: Transnational Shifts in Asian Canadian Writing (2011), The Prepoetics of William Carlos Williams (1983), and an annotated bibliography of the poet and novelist George Bowering (1990).[4]
In 2006, Miki was made a Member of the Order of Canada and received the 20th annual Gandhi Peace Award for the truth, justice, human rights, and non-violence exemplified in his redress work.[2][5] The same year, he also received the Thakore Visiting Scholar award and the Sterling Prize in Support of Controversy.[6] In 2007, he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.[4] In 2009, he was made a Member of the Order of British Columbia.[4]
Miki died on 5 October 2024, at the age of 82.[7]
Poetry
- 1991: Saving Face: Poems Selected, 1976–1988, Winnipeg: Turnstone Press
- 1995: Random Access File, Markham, ON: Red Deer Press
- 2001: Surrender, Toronto: The Mercury Press, winner of the 2002 Governor General's Award for poetry
- 2006: There, Vancouver: New Star Books
- 2011: Mannequin Rising, Vancouver: New Star Books
- 2018: Flow: Poems Collected and New (edited by Michael Barnholden), Vancouver: Talonbooks
Critical studies
- 1983: The Prepoetics of William Carlos Williams, Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press
- 1988: Tracing the Paths: Reading ≠ Writing The Martyrology, Vancouver: Talonbooks
- 1989: A Record of Writing: An Annotated and Illustrated Bibliography of George Bowering, Vancouver: Talonbooks
- 2004: Redress: Inside the Japanese Canadian Call for Justice, Vancouver: Raincoast Books
Editor
- 1985: This Is My Own: Letters to Wes and Other Writings on Japanese-Canadians, 1941–1948 by Muriel Kitagawa, Vancouver: Talonbooks
- 1997: Pacific Windows: The Collected Poems of Roy Kiyooka, Vancouver: Talonbooks
Other
- 1998: Broken Entries: Race, Subjectivity, Writing (Essays), Toronto: The Mercury Press
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