collected
Nonfiction · Comics & Graphic Novels · Biography & Memoir · History
About 4 h 45 min · at 30 minutes a day, about 10 days
Estimated from the page count of this edition. Dense books can take longer than the estimate.
Miné Okubo records her imprisonment at Tanforan in California and Topaz in Utah during the forced removal and confinement of people of Japanese descent in World War II. First published in 1946, Citizen 13660 documents the practical business of living under government orders: transportation, barracks, communal facilities, and rules that reached into ordinary routines.
Drawings paired with short passages carry the graphic memoir, allowing crowded rooms and small domestic improvisations to register alongside the spare narration. The voice is candid and frequently wry, finding absurdity in camp life without softening its indignities. Its history unfolds through close observation of daily conditions rather than extended political analysis.
Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).
Established
No, the spare, direct narration and drawings paired with short passages make it accessible without much prior knowledge. The chronological, episodic structure is straightforward, though the account of forced removal and confinement carries emotional weight.
A personal account of imprisonment at Tanforan in California and Topaz in Utah. Okubo records transportation, barracks, communal facilities, and rules governing everyday routines; the historical understanding comes through close observation rather than extended political analysis.
The voice is candid and frequently wry, finding absurdity in camp life without softening its indignities. Drawings of crowded rooms and small domestic improvisations sit alongside spare narration, giving the measured account an intimate, reflective feel.
240 pages in the University of Washington Press 2014 paperback edition.
University of Washington Press · 2014 · Paperback. ISBN 9780295993546.
About 4 hours 45 minutes at 50 pages an hour, based on the 240-page University of Washington Press edition. Dense books can take longer.
Miné Okubo was an American artist and writer whose close observation of everyday life shaped both her visual art and her prose. Incarcerated with her brother at Tanforan and Topaz during World War II, she made more than 2,000 drawings and sketches and helped found the literary magazine Trek. She later drew on this work for Citizen 13660, pairing 198 images with text to chronicle the routines and conditions of Japanese American incarceration from the perspective of someone living through it.
Marjane Satrapi
Comics & Graphic Novels · Biography & Memoir · History
Frederick Douglass
Biography & Memoir · History · Social Science
