First published 2009
Hiroko Tanaka stands on her veranda in Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, watching her lover depart as sunlight fills Urakami Valley. Then the atomic bomb detonates and her world turns white. In the wreckage that follows, Hiroko abandons Japan to rebuild her life elsewhere. She travels first to Delhi during India's struggle for independence from Britain, then to New York City just after the September 11 attacks, and finally to Afghanistan. Across three generations and three continents, violent history pursues her family. The atomic bombing that destroyed her first life connects to the conflicts that shape her new ones. Hiroko discovers that escape from the past proves impossible when global forces of war and politics reach into every refuge she finds.
Genres: literary-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, 21st-century
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: family-secrets, fish-out-of-water
Setting: Nagasaki, Delhi, New York City, Afghanistan
Period: 1945, India's Independence, September 11 Attacks
384 pages · Kindle Edition · Picador
Content warnings: violence, war