[2] Originally from Medicine Hat, Alberta,[3] he is the son of a Japanese Canadian father, Stan Sakamoto, and a Scottish-Canadian mother, Diane MacLean.
Sakamoto worked on the political staff of former Liberal Party of Canada leader Michael Ignatieff.
[4] He is currently the executive vice-president for Think Research,[5] a Canadian software company innovating in health data, and has served on the boards of the Ontario Media Development Corporation and the Trudeau Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies.
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.
[8] Following its Canada Reads win, producer Don Carmody announced that he had optioned the book for development as a television miniseries.