The Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist uncovers the little-known story of the dangerous negotiations that led to the exchange of American and Japanese civilians during World War II.

In the fall of 1943, as some of the Second World War’s bloodiest battles unfolded across the Pacific, the United States and Japan pulled off a diplomatic coup—the return of civilians caught on the wrong side of the battlefield after Pearl Harbor. In Safe Passage, journalist Evelyn Iritani reveals the rarely told story behind this wartime exchange, featuring a cast of determined diplomats, sharp-tongued journalists, missionaries, and refugees—and the difficult choices involved in bringing everyone home.

Drawing on the Library’s The New Yorker records, housed in the Manuscripts and Archives Division, Iritani sheds new light on this remarkable story of diplomacy and survival.

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ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Evelyn Iritani is the author of An Ocean Between Us: The Changing Relationship of Japan and the United States, Told in Four Stories from the Life of an American Town. She is a former reporter for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the Los Angeles Times, where her reporting garnered numerous awards, including the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for a series she coauthored on Walmart.

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Evelyn Iritani © Keia Wong