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| Atria Books This book also available in Spanish. |
I would empty myself of everything but love. –
Ichimei
Isabel Allende’s THE
JAPANESE LOVER is an engaging and romantic tale spanning 70 years and multiple
generations. The main themes in this novel are family, friendship, loyalty,
identity and above all, love.
Love makes the world go
round and in this novel, love’s survival is at its heart. The forbidden love
between Alma, a young Polish girl and her family’s Japanese gardener, Ichimei,
lasts a lifetime in spite of their racial differences and the trials that separate
them. Beautiful love letters and small token gifts keep them connected through
his imprisonment in the Japanese concentration camps and afterward when they
wed other people.
Readers will laugh and
cry as these lovers fall in love, only to lose their love. Romeo and Juliet? Maybe, but these lovers decide to live and to
love even if it’s in secret and only in their hearts. As Ichimei states, he will empty himself of
everything but love, and by forgetting the prejudices and the despair, he will keep
the memory of their love alive; just as Alma relives their love as she rereads
his love letters and reopens his gifts.
It is at the end of her
life that Alma meets Irina, the young caseworker at the senior center’s home.
Their friendship helps to revive Alma’s spirits and allows her to share her
story with Irina. Hoping to bring peace and a little romance back to her
patient’s life, Irina partners with Seth, Alma’s caring grandson, to search for
the missing Ichimei and bring the lovers together one last time.
It is curious to note
that right now on Broadway, the musical Allegiance, staring George Takei and Lea
Salonga is getting rave reviews. It too
deals with the imprisonment of Japanese Americas after the attack on Pearl
Harbor. And it is heart-breaking to learn that George himself was a child
internee at one of those prison camps.
For more information on Allegiance, the Musical, click here.
BOOK SUMMARY: In 1939, as
Poland falls under the shadow of the Nazis, young Alma Belasco’s parents send
her away to live in safety with an aunt and uncle in their opulent mansion in
San Francisco. There, as the rest of the world goes to war, she encounters
Ichimei Fukuda, the quiet and gentle son of the family’s Japanese gardener.
Unnoticed by those around them, a tender love affair begins to blossom.
Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the two are cruelly pulled apart
as Ichimei and his family—like thousands of other Japanese Americans—are
declared enemies and forcibly relocated to internment camps run by the United
States government. Throughout their lifetimes, Alma and Ichimei reunite again
and again, but theirs is a love that they are forever forced to hide from the
world.
Decades later, Alma is nearing the end of her long and eventful life. Irina Bazili, a care worker struggling to come to terms with her own troubled past, meets the elderly woman and her grandson, Seth, at San Francisco’s charmingly eccentric Lark House nursing home. As Irina and Seth forge a friendship, they become intrigued by a series of mysterious gifts and letters sent to Alma, eventually learning about Ichimei and this extraordinary secret passion that has endured for nearly seventy years.
Sweeping through time and spanning generations and continents, THE JAPANESE LOVER explores questions of identity, abandonment, redemption, and the unknowable impact of fate on our lives. Written with the same attention to historical detail and keen understanding of her characters that Isabel Allende has been known for since her landmark first novel The House of the Spirits, The Japanese Lover is a profoundly moving tribute to the constancy of the human heart in a world of unceasing change.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Isabel Allende was born in Peru and raised in
Chile. Her books are bestsellers including THE HOUSE OF
SPIRITS, DAUGHTER OF FORTUNE and MY INVENTED COUNTRY, whic have been translated into
more than 35 languages and have sold over 65 million copies worldwide. Visit her at www.isabelallende.com.