LEWISTON – Dr. Atsuko Hirai will present a talk on the “Japanese American Experience During World War II” at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, April 15, at the Lewiston Public Library. The presentation is part of the Lewiston and Auburn public libraries’ “One Book, One Community” celebration.

Hirai is the Kazushige Hirasawa Professor of History at Bates College where she teaches a seminar course for first-year students on the United States’ relocation camps in World War II.

The free public lecture will look at the period in American history when 110,000 resident Japanese and American citizens of Japanese descent were interned in “relocation camps” far away from their homes.

The book chosen for this year’s One Book, One Community event is “Snow Falling on Cedars” by David Guterson. The story is about post-World War II life on San Piedro Island in Puget Sound off the coast of Washington.

The story has something for everybody: an apparent murder and trial, a love affair and a community haunted by the memory of what happened to its Japanese-American residents during World War II. When the title was first published in 1995 it won the American Booksellers Association Book of the Year Award.

The public is encouraged (but not required) to read the book prior to the presentation. Hirai will also analyze the novel and look at its depiction of the historical reality for Japanese Americans in the 1940s and 1950s.

“Snow Falling on Cedars” is available for loan at both libraries and may be reserved by calling either. Copies are available for purchase at a 20 percent discount at local bookstores. For more information, call APL, 782-3191; LPL, 784-0135.