21 Apr 2026
Posted by Kelly Fleck 
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Left: The cover of Hidden Flowers. Photo courtesy: Heritage House. Right: The Broken Map Home. Photo courtesy: Caitlin Press. Keiko Honda will speak about her newest books, Hidden Flowers and The Broken Map Home, during two Asian Heritage Month book events in Toronto: Ben McNally Books on May 4 and the Toronto Public Library on May 5.
TORONTO — Vancouver-based author, artist, scientist, and community organizer Keiko Honda is all too familiar with stepping into the unknown. In her two recent books, she explores what happens when the maps of our lives lead us somewhere we never expected. She asks, when we no longer recognize our surroundings, where do we belong?
“There are so many things we cannot control in our lives. And even though we may have a map to the destination where [we] may want to go, often [it’s] not a straight line or a clear destination,” Honda tells Nikkei Voice in an interview.
To make sense of life’s unexpected twists and turns, Honda writes essays about family, motherhood, displacement, belonging, and identity. These essays form her new memoir, Hidden Flowers, published by Heritage House in October.
In her second book published last year, The Broken Map Home, Honda translates her grandfather’s memoir, recounting his perilous journey repatriating to Japan through Soviet-occupied Korea in the aftermath of the Second World War.
Honda will be in Toronto for two Asian Heritage Month book events in May: Ben McNally Books on May 4 and the Toronto Public Library (Mount Pleasant) on May 5.
Keiko Honda at the book launch at the Nikkei National Museum & Cultural Centre. Photo credit: SiMing Zheng.
Honda has experienced many transitions in her life, from migrating from Japan to New York City, then Vancouver, and after the sudden onset of a rare autoimmune disease, which paralyzed her from the chest down, the transition from being able-bodied to a wheelchair user.
In Hidden Flowers, she explores a new phase in her life, aging and motherhood after becoming an empty nester, as her only child departs across the country for university. She explores feelings of loneliness, emptiness, and the transformative power of artistic self-expression.
“The book comes from a really profound moment of change in my life…I really felt like [I was] being fired or having an unexpected early retirement. Totally disoriented, I found myself caught in between identities,” says Honda.
Through a series of essays, Honda explores feelings of displacement and disorientation, from the quiet emptiness of her daughter moving out, to feeling disconnected from her family in Japan as they age and change, and not conforming to cultural expectations, to living in a world made for able-bodied people. A life filled with incredible achievements, but also debilitating setbacks, Honda examines these moments with deep introspection and reflection.
The cover of Keiko Honda’s second memoir, Hidden Flowers. Photo courtesy: Heritage House Publishing.
In this journey through transitioning, aging, reflecting, and creating, Honda explores Fushikaden, or the flowering spirit, a concept from Zeami Motokiyo, a 14th-century Noh master. The teachings emphasize the beauty of unexpected moments and nurturing a flower to bloom not just once, but throughout our lives.
In the moments of loneliness and stillness, there is a flower concealed in the cool, fertile soil, just waiting to bloom again.
“I really hope this book gives readers permission to see their own lives as beautiful, fragmented, ongoing, and full of potential. It’s like a hidden flower that’s waiting for that perfect moment to bloom,” says Honda.
Chapters are themed by micro-seasons, which emphasize Japanese concepts of mindfulness and intentionality. Adding to this, the memoir is illustrated with Honda’s watercolour paintings, encouraging readers to slow down and savour the book.
The book’s stunning design won third place for Illustrated Prose in the Alcuin Society’s 43rd Annual Awards for Excellence in Book Design in Canada last month.
Honda began painting in her 40s. This later-in-life exploration of creativity was inspired partly by her maternal grandfather, Konnosuke Masuda. After retiring from a career as a banker, he embraced a creative life.
Honda was born and grew up in her grandparents’ home in Kumamoto, Japan, and would tag along on her grandfather’s nature painting excursions.
“I grew up smelling the oil paint in his studios,” says Honda.
Masuda taught Honda that creativity comes not just in the moments in front of an easel, but in all moments of life, and through slowing down and noticing the world around you. From taking time to notice the blooming flowers.
Honda’s second book published last year, The Broken Map Home, is a translation of Masuda’s memoir about his journey home after the Second World War. In the summer of 1945, Japan surrendered to the Allies, leaving 850,000 Japanese civilians in Korea facing an uncertain future after 35 years of Japanese colonial rule in the country.
A banker transferred to work in Korea, Masuda was drafted by the Japanese Army three months before the end of the war. After Japan surrendered, he joined fellow Japanese citizens on a perilous journey from North Korea to South Korea.
Author Keiko Honda. Photo credit: Anton Fernando.
His story unfolds against a land violently divided on the 38th parallel by the Soviet Union and the U.S., and people ravaged by hunger and epidemic. His story is a powerful account of suffering, resilience, and the kindness of people, sometimes strangers, during global conflict.
Completing the memoir 30 years ago, Honda initially read it when she was in her 20’s, young and busy starting her life in Tokyo. She brought the memoir with her to New York and then Vancouver, as a precious family treasure.
As life slowed down during the pandemic and then her daughter left for university, Honda revisited her grandfather’s memoir. She wanted the memoir to be a keepsake for her daughter, too, but it was written in old Japanese. First, she translated the book into contemporary Japanese and then into English. Translating the memoir meant revisiting and rereading the text over and over, and Honda was struck with questions she wished she could’ve asked her late grandfather.
“I wish I could have a really direct conversation with him. I had all this time until he passed away, but I was elsewhere, Tokyo or New York, studying, working, so even though I had so much time with him, I really never really asked about this book,” says Honda.
The memoir includes reflections and historical background, acknowledging Japan’s colonial rule in Korea and the atrocities committed in Asia, written by Honda to help contextualize her grandfather’s story. Honda wanted to express the complexity of war—things are never black and white—people can be both perpetrators and victims through a change of circumstance.
With current global conflicts and the Nobel Peace Prize recently being awarded to Hidankyo, a Japanese organization spreading awareness of nuclear weapons, it felt like an important time to share her grandfather’s story.
Today, there are so many active wars and conflicts, displacing millions from their homes. Japan is increasing its military power, and Honda feels her grandfather’s story is a warning call. Honda hopes readers think critically about his story.
The message Masuda expresses, and Honda reiterates in her reflections: no more war. Masuda repatriated to Japan with no money or home for his wife and children, whom he had been separated from for a year while trying to return to Japan. He carried memories of Koreans and Russians who were strangers, yet saved his life, and witnessed profound human suffering.
He rarely spoke about his experiences and spent his retirement oil painting, composing haiku, fly fishing, shaping bonsai, and writing a memoir no one commissioned.
“The strong message for this book is that no war can be justified because of the human loss; the cost is too much. I wanted to highlight this profound tragedy, of how war tosses people into roles that they never chose, but at the same time, how do you then prevent it, or what can we do about it?” says Honda.
The cover of Keiko Honda’s The Broken Map Home. Photo courtesy: Caitlin Press.
Masuda wrote his story to connect to hope. While he rarely spoke about his experiences, he wrote them for his family, with the hope of a better future. There was likely pain in recalling his experiences, and Honda found a deep respect for his courage to tell his story.
“We all often learn from others’ stories. I’m sure he connected to that. He’s not simply writing his story just for the sake of writing. He was connecting his hope with change,” says Honda.
Each generation leaves behind fragments for the next generation to piece together and add to their own maps along their journeys through life.
We inherit fragments of these maps from those who came before us, which shape our journeys in unexpected ways.
From her grandfather, she inherited love, creativity, but also the shadow of the history he carried. His memoir became a way for him to share the things he couldn’t say.
Similarly, Honda writes for her daughter. The map she is creating today will lead her daughter and others somewhere she can’t yet imagine. The work is never finished, and the map keeps changing, breaking, and rebuilding itself, because that is life.
“Even though we think we are leaving certain legacies or stories behind, the future generations may not pick them up, or they may pick up the fragments, and then they will reconstruct their own version. I think that’s how we survive as a collective,” says Honda.
We are all translators, carrying our broken maps, and trying to find, understand, and connect with each other.
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Keiko Honda will speak about her newest books, Hidden Flowers and The Broken Map Home, during two Asian Heritage Month book events in Toronto: Ben McNally Books on May 4 and the Toronto Public Library on May 5.
