Hisaye Yamamoto received acclaim for her work almost from the very beginning of her career. She was, as King-Kok Cheung noted, "one of the first Japanese-American writers to gain national recognition after the war, when anti-Japanese sentiment was still rampant."[14] Although she herself resisted being rigidly characterized as a voice for Japanese or Asian groups ("I don't think you can write aiming at a specifically Asian-American audience if you want to write freely"[4]), she was considered one of the premier Asian-American authors.
Awards and Fellowships
- 2010: Asian American Writers Workshop's Lifetime Achievement Award [15]
- 1988: Association for Asian American Studies's Award for Literature for Seventeen Syllables [7]
- 1986: Before Columbus Foundation's American Book Award for Lifetime Achievement [2]
- 1952: "Yoneko's Earthquake" named one of Best American Short Stories [2]
- Early 1950s: Declined a Stanford University Writing Fellowship in order to pursue social work[2]
- 1950–51: John Hay Whitney Foundation Opportunity Fellowship [2]
Tribute
- 2021: Google celebrated her with a Google Doodle.[16]
