The Wyoming Historical Society has honored the Heart Mountain Bungei website with the prestigious Best Website Prize. The website showcases a series of literary articles and poetry originally penned by first-generation Japanese immigrants who were unjustly incarcerated at Heart Mountain during World War II.
The Heart Mountain Bungei, a literary journal, was published in Japanese while the incarceration took place during World War II. Recently, as part of a program funded by a grant from the Japanese Foreign Ministry, the Bungei articles and poetry were translated.
There were six editions of Bungei published at Heart Mountain between January and September 1944—a collaborative result of poetry clubs formed within the camp during the war.
Editors Iwamuro Yoshiaki and О̄kubo Tadashige decided to collect the work produced by these clubs, as well as essays and short stories and works by independent writers, and publish them as a literary magazine.
To access the Bungei web page, go to https://exhibits.heartmountain.org/bungei/