Michael Hoyt

Hanabata Days: Hanabata Days is a graphic memoir written and illustrated by Michael Hoyt. It explores the unexpected reunion of a father and son, 47 years after separation.

Hanabata Days is a graphic memoir that explores the unexpected reunion of a father and son, 47 years after separation. The diasporic story unfolds visually over the span of 60+ years navigating shifting geographic and cultural dissonance, from pre-tourism Hawai'i to present day Middle America. Its central characters' hidden pasts are made visible to one another after searching for answers compelled by hope, premonition, the stars, currents, and the introduction of ancestral coordinates unlocked via shared genetic data. How do two familial strangers proceed forward and make meaning together? What possible pasts can be known and never known? What secrets should remain buried? And is their path to redemption intricately dependent on one another? Hanabata Days connects two lives impacted by different forms of colonization, silence, and ambiguous longing. Each seeking to reckon with their complex pasts towards reclamation.
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