Hiromi Goto has her own website, which makes it easier to find out about her and her work. From it we learn that she writes poetry, short and long fiction. She writes for children, teens and adults. It makes sense to me that Goto is a published poet, because one of the the standouts of Half World is the language. Her writing asks the reader to utilize all of their senses. She has written a sequel to Half World called Darkest Light. It takes place sixteen years after the events of the first novel.
Half World won two awards, the 2010 Sunburst Award (YA Category) and the Carl Brandon Parallax Award, and was nominated for four more, including the IMPAC Dublin. I follow this award because it has an incredibly long and varied longlist. Nominations are made by public libraries. Goto’s website recommends Half World for fans of Pan’s Labyrinth and The Spiderwick Chronicles. I think she nailed it.
In an interview with Indiebound, Goto addresses how having “children of color” motivates her to write the protagonists she writes. She says, “Children of color were seldom depicted as having adventures, solving mysteries, saving lives, falling in love, etc. After several years of frustration I thought, Okay! It’s not out there! You’re a writer. You do it! Our children want and need their adventures, too! So this item has been added to my writerly agenda” (as cited in Grant, 2008).
Goto’s blog is sporadically updated. The most recent post links to an interview she did for Nineteenquestions. Nineteenquestions is a project by the Creative Writing Program at UBC. It explores “how writers became who they are” (Nineteenquestions, 2014). Of writing, Goto says, “You can touch someone’s life, you can inspire, educate, suggest, seduce. You can break apart silence, smash oppression, set fire to old regimes, you can imagine a better world…. ” (as cited in Whishaw, 2014). Goto is more active on Twitter. She tweets about the environment, politics, writing, and cooking. Her handle is @hinganai.
Goto currently lives in BC where she’s working on an adult novel and a graphic novel. I’m not surprised to hear she lives here; the World of the Flesh parts of Half World are clearly set in Vancouver (though the setting is unnamed, streets and stores are not).
Image Sources (from top to bottom)
Ramos, K. (2014). Hiromi Goto [Photograph]. Retrieved from http://www.hiromigoto.com/wp-content/uploads/IMG_3957_color_scl-300×200.jpg
References
Grant, G. J., & Indiebound. (2008). Hiromi Goto interview. Retrieved from http://www.indiebound.org/author-interviews/gotohiromi
Whishaw, H. (2014, June 16). Hiromi Goto – nineteenquestions [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://nineteenquestions.com/2014/06/16/hiromi-goto/
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