Daruma Days

Set in the internment camps of the British Columbia interior during World War II, Terry Watada’s Daruma Days captures the Japanese Canadian experience of imprisonment. Watada draws on personal accounts to portray the camps as haunted by demonic forces, the inhabitants caught between two worlds: the cultures of Japan and Canada and discloses the heretofore unmentioned gangster culture and scandals among the Japanese Canadians themselves–an eye-opener for most readers who have never been permitted this unusual viewpoint. With its controversial materials, Daruma Days alters our understanding of the internment camps forever.