Reception for Mr. Yoshihiro Tatsumi at the Japan Foundation

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The Japan Foundation,Toronto and The Toronto Comic Arts Festival are pleased to invite you and a guest to a reception welcoming manga author Yoshihiro Tatsumi to Toronto. Mr. Tatsumi is the author of numerous works including his masterful autobiographical graphic novel, A Drifting Life, published in English by Canada's Drawn & Quarterly Publications. A Drifting Life recently received the 13th Annual Osamu Tezuka Cultural Prize: Grand Prize, and was called , "...among this genre's signal achievments", by the New York Times.

The reception will include welcoming remarks by Mr. Masayuki Suzuki, Director of the Japan Foundation, and a presentation of Mr. Tatsumi's work by Christopher Butcher of The Toronto Comic Arts Festival. Mr. Tatsumi will participate in a moderated Q&A session, and A Drifting Life will be featured in a visual presentation throughout the evening.

The Beguiling Books and Art will be offering copies of all of Mr. Tatsumi's works in English, including A Drifting Life, for purchase at the reception.

The Japan Foundation Toronto Library's new Japanese pop culture space and new acquisitions of manga will be available for viewing during the evening.

Press Inquiries:
In Japanese, contact Mariko Liliefeldt at the Japan Foundation at 416-966-1600 ext. 238 or mliliefeldt@jftor.org
In English, contact Christopher Butcher or Peter Birkemoe at 416-533-9168 or 2009@torontocomics.com

Should you wish to join us at this reception, please contact The Japan Foundation, Toronto by our website at www.jftor.org/whatson/rsvp or by telephone at 416-966-1600 ext.105. We certainly hope that you are able to attend.

The Toronto Comic Arts Festival is being held May 9 & 10, 2009 at the Toronto Reference Library.
http://torontocomics.com/tcaf

Biographies:
Yoshihiro Tatsumi: Born in Osaka, Japan, in 1935, Yoshihiro Tatsumi is an incredibly influential Japanese comics artist widely credited with starting the "Gekiga" style of comics in Japan in the late 1950s, expanding the audience for comics (manga) to include more than just children. Beginning in 2006, Canadian publisher Drawn and Quarterly undertook the task of bringing Tatsumi's work to the west, by publishing collections of his short stories The Push Man, Abandon the Old in Tokyo, and Good Bye. 2009 sees the release of Mr. Tatsumi's massive 855 page manga autobiography A Drifting Life, winner of the 13th Annual Osamu Tezuka Cultural Prize: Grand Prize.

Christopher Butcher: Christopher Butcher is the Director and Co-Founder of the Toronto Comic Arts Festival, an international exhibition of comics and graphic novels held every two years in Toronto. Christopher also manages The Beguiling Books, Canada's foremost comics retail establishment, and is a freelance writer who writes daily at comics212.net.