Kaki: The Land of Po is a 30-page zine with a selection of haiku written by my great-grandma and illustrated by me.
Born in Japan, my great-grandma, Yasue, migrated to Brazil late in life, where she spent her remaining years until her passing. She expressed her profoundly curious and insightful observations of the strange new land she found herself in the form of haiku. They were compiled into a book titled Kaki, or “persimmon” in Japanese.
The poems depict her interest in the differences between Japan and Brazil and her fondness for the country where she spent the “best years of her life”. Released in 1990, the book had largely been forgotten by our family, but after rediscovering it early in 2022, we’re hoping to share her work with more people.
The book’s title, Kaki, is a play on words created by my great-grandma. It’s written as 加喜 (pronounced with the Chinese reading), a combination of the verb 加える (kuwaeru, to add) and 喜び (yorokobi, happiness), creating the portmanteau “to add happiness” (or 加喜). It also phonetically refers to persimmon, her favorite fruit.
Knowing that sweet orange fruit is central to the book, I naturally wanted to incorporate it into the cover of the zine. But instead of drawing a single persimmon as in the original cover painted by her stepson, I wanted it to have many persimmons. I’d like to think that if she was able to see her grown-up grandchildren and great-grandchildren today, and especially reading her book, we would be part of her “added happiness”.
I started with a rough sketch of a few branches of persimmon trees. While cleaning up the sketch, I decided to redo it and add some leaves. to balance out the composition. I initially thought of outlining the drawing with a slightly darker shade of brown than the sketch, but ended up changing to dark green for better contrast.
Then the final stages (on the right): cleaning the outline and coloring. I still don’t know whether I prefer the background to be white or green (top of this post) for the cover, so I’ll play around with it and post the results sometime next month.
Translating haiku is a monumental task so there isn’t a release date for this zine yet. If there is anyone who has experience/knowledge in the area and is interested in helping or giving some advice, please feel free to message me!
Kaki: The Land of Po
¥2000
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30-page A5 size stapled zine
Cover: 120 mg paper
Inner: 110 mg snow paper
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Shipping fee varies depending on the destination and is not included in the price. Orders will be processed within 4 business days. Product is shipped from Tokyo, Japan.