24.07.1968 (55 years) (Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA)
Mark Sakamoto is a Canadian lawyer and writer. He is most noted for Forgiveness: A Gift from My Grandparents, a family memoir which was published in 2014.Originally from Medicine Hat, Alberta, he is the son of a Japanese Canadian father, Stan Sakamoto, and a white Canadian mother, Diane MacLean. During World War II, his paternal grandparents were affected by the Japanese internment in Canada, while his maternal grandfather was captured by the Japanese as a prisoner of war. To write the book, Sakamoto interviewed his grandparents about how they forgave those formative experiences to embrace and connect with each other when their son and daughter fell in love and married. The book was a shortlisted finalist for the Edna Staebler Award in 2015.Forgiveness was selected for the 2018 edition of Canada Reads, where it was defended by Jeanne Beker. It ended up winning the contest on March 29, 2018. Following its Canada Reads win, producer Don Carmody announced that he had optioned the book for development as a television miniseries.Sakamoto worked on the political staff of former Liberal Party of Canada leader Michael Ignatieff. He went on to serve as an executive for Think Research Group, a medical software company, and serves on the boards of the Ontario Media Development Corporation and the Trudeau Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies.