ROY AKIRA MIKI

October 10, 1942 - October 5, 2024 It is with inconsolable sadness that we announce the passing of a loving husband, father, grandfather, brother, poet, scholar, activist and teacher, who left us on October 5, 2024. Roy is mourned by his forever-together spouse of 57 years, Slavia; children, Waylen and Elisse; grandson, Ellery; and siblings, Art and Joan. Roy was a leading spokesperson for the National Association of Japanese Canadians, and was instrumental in the signing of the historic Redress agreement in 1988. His 2004 book, Redress: Inside the Japanese Canadian Call for Justice offers an eloquent account of that arduous process. Roy received his PhD from UBC in 1981, and later joined the English Department at SFU in the '70s, where he taught until his retirement in 2007. There, he played a pivotal role in establishing Asian Canadian literature courses as a field. Roy wrote and edited many critical studies, literary essays, and books of poetry. His work, Surrender, received the Governor General's Award for Poetry in 2001. Roy received the Order of Canada in 2006, the Order of British Columbia in 2009, the 20th Annual Gandhi Peace Award, an honorary Doctor of Divinity, the Thakore Visiting Scholar Award, and the Sterling Prize in Support of Controversy. In 2007, he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. He and Slavia co-authored two children's books, Dolphin SOS, winner of the BC Book Prize in 2015, and Peggy's Impossible Tale, which won the Chocolate Lily Award in 2023.