Ruth Ozeki Reflection

It was nice seeing the author of the book we read over this summer and discussed a lot about in class. It was my first time meeting the author of a book that I had read, and it was a cool experience. I enjoyed it because we were able to ask Ruth questions that we had in our mind while reading the book, and we were able to understand the process it took Ruth to complete “A tale for the Time Being”. Some themes that Ruth discussed in the event had to do with the characters she chose, the reason it took so long to complete it, structure, and the ending of the book Ruth Ozeki said that she didn’t have to sit down and think which characters to put in this novel, but rather the voices and the characters themselves came to her. In 2006, she heard the voice of Nao, but she didn’t know anything about her at first. The character just popped into Ruth’s mind and introduced herself. All she knew about Nao was that she was a Japanese high school student who was troubled and suicidal. Ruth knew she was going to write it in English even though Nao was Japanese, and that she was going to write the diary to somebody. Nao didn’t know who she was writing her diary too so neither did Ruth Ozeki. It took Ruth 5 years to figure out …show more content…
Nao came from Ozeki’s own childhood; growing up in America as a Japanese girl and getting bullied for being different. Ruth also mentioned that most fictional characters are deeply reflected to the authors, which is true in this case because Nao was a reflection of her childhood. Another reason for putting Nao in the novel was Ozeki’s concern for bullying. Nao was a response for Ozeki’s concern for the well-being of teenagers who were thinking about suicide. There wasn’t really a “purpose” of Nao, instead it was about the concerns she had for these