Cathedral
We Hereby Refuse: Japanese American Resistance to Wartime Incarceration

31 Letters and 13 Dreams

Each letter is written from a specific place that Hugo has made his own (a “triggering town,” as he has called it elsewhere) to a friend, a fellow poet, an old love.

We read over the poet’s shoulder as the town triggers the imagination, the friendship is re-opened, the poet’s selfhood is explored and illuminated.

The “dreams” turn up unexpectedly (as dreams do) among the letters; their haunting images give further depth to the poet’s exploration.

Are we overhearing them?

Who is the “you” that dreams?

More Adult, Non-Juvenile Books

  • Winner of the 1987 American Book Award The Essential Etheridge Knight is a selection of the best work by one of the country’s most prominent and liveliest poets. It brings together poems from Knight’s previously published books and a section of new poems.
  • The Fault in Our Stars is insightful, bold, irreverent, and raw. It brilliantly explores the funny, thrilling, and tragic business of being alive and in love.
  • In The Golem of Brooklyn, Len Bronstein, an art teacher with little knowledge of Judaism, accidentally brings a golem to life after stealing clay and getting high. As this nine-foot-six, Yiddish-speaking creature learns about contemporary crises, including the rise of white nationalism, it embodies the weight of Jewish history and trauma, prompting profound questions about humanity and identity.
  • In The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, James McBride explores the intertwined lives of the residents of Chicken Hill, a neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans coexist amid struggles and secrets. As the community rallies to protect a deaf boy from institutionalization, the narrative reveals the deep bonds of love and resilience that sustain them, even in the face of adversity and the oppressive forces of society.