A princess lily of the Ryukyus
Type
Book
Authors
Category
History
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Publication Year
1984
Publisher
Pages
382
Description
"Mrs. Martin writes of what happened in 1945 to Okinawa, her native island, and of an earlier Okinawa as well.
Okinawa is a beautiful place, populated by gentle, pleasant people, and it is also a tragic place. The tragedy did not begin in 1945, but it reached new heights in the spring and summer of that year, when the island was invaded and taken by the Americans.
The happenings of 1945 deserve to be remembered, and indeed they are remembered, in Okinawa, certainly, and to a lesser extent in the rest of Japan. Among the victims who are remembered best are the girls of the Himeyuri (here rendered 'princess lily') schools. Conscripted into the Japanese government service, most of them died, by their own hands and otherwise. The Himeyuri memorial has become a sort of shrine.
Mrs. Martin is one of them, and this is her story and theirs. She tells it gracefully, quietly, and without sentimentality. She has chosen the felicitous device of interlarding her narrative of the catastrophe with vignettes about the Okinawa of her childhood. In its want of rancor and its way of moving the reader by understatement, her book calls to mind the best piece of fiction about Hiroshima, Ibuse Masuji's Black Rain.
We may hope that the tragedy will also be remembered in the land of the invaders. Publication of this estimable book encourages the hope"--From Foreword.
Okinawa is a beautiful place, populated by gentle, pleasant people, and it is also a tragic place. The tragedy did not begin in 1945, but it reached new heights in the spring and summer of that year, when the island was invaded and taken by the Americans.
The happenings of 1945 deserve to be remembered, and indeed they are remembered, in Okinawa, certainly, and to a lesser extent in the rest of Japan. Among the victims who are remembered best are the girls of the Himeyuri (here rendered 'princess lily') schools. Conscripted into the Japanese government service, most of them died, by their own hands and otherwise. The Himeyuri memorial has become a sort of shrine.
Mrs. Martin is one of them, and this is her story and theirs. She tells it gracefully, quietly, and without sentimentality. She has chosen the felicitous device of interlarding her narrative of the catastrophe with vignettes about the Okinawa of her childhood. In its want of rancor and its way of moving the reader by understatement, her book calls to mind the best piece of fiction about Hiroshima, Ibuse Masuji's Black Rain.
We may hope that the tragedy will also be remembered in the land of the invaders. Publication of this estimable book encourages the hope"--From Foreword.
Number of Copies
1
