Uncommon Book Illustrated by Miné Okubo
Where the Carp Banners Fly
Notes: After publishing her illustrated internment memoir (and proto-graphic novel) Citizen 13660 in 1946, Miné Okubo found work as an artist illustrating books for the Friendship Press, an imprint of the National Council of Churches. This chapter book set in Japan is illustrated from Okubo's ink drawings, most printed with yellow spot-color backgrounds. Okubo's illustrations are playful interpretations of traditional Japanese scenes, with a few abstract elements here and there. This book is one of the scarcest of her illustrated books.
Okubo (1912–2001), was born in Riverside, California, the daughter of Japanese immigrants. She graduated with an art degree from UC Berkeley in the late 1930s, and her career became defined by the Second World War. She won a fellowship to study art in Europe, a sojourn that was cut short by the outbreak of war. Back in the US, she joined the Works Progress Administration doing public art in the San Francisco Bay Area. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, she was interned at Topaz where she taught art and illustrated the camp's literary journal. That work ultimately led to Fortune magazine hiring her as an illustrator, which allowed her to be paroled to the East Coast. Shortly after the war, she published Citizen 13660, an illustrated account of internment. She gave up illustration work in the early 1960s and drifted into obscurity, painting for herself and a few patrons. Her work was rediscovered in the 1980s when a new edition of Citizen 13660 won an American Book Award.
OCLC: 9767446
Edition + Condition: First edition (first printing). A near fine copy with only minor wear. An uncommon book; few survive in nicer condition.
Publication: New York: Friendship Press, 1949.
Item No: #361985
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