LoveReading Says
Fluidly inter-weaving many lives and two timelines, this remarkable debut begins in Malaysia in 1942. When Japanese troops move in, seventeen-year-old Wang Di is sent to a military brothel to be a “comfort woman”. The experiences of these women are unflinchingly portrayed as Wang Di breaks a sixty-year silence. Then there’s twelve-year-old Kevin, a bullied, visually-impaired boy who hears his dying grandmother make a confession in 2000, a revelation that drives him to discover the truth about his family.
Haunting, harrowing, sweeping and compelling, this is a courageous story of survival, memory, and how we deal with trauma.
Joanne Owen
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How We Disappeared Synopsis
Longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize
Longlisted for the HWA Debut Crown
Shortlisted for the 2020 Singapore Literature Prize
'A heartbreaking but hopeful story about memory, trauma and ultimately love.' New York Times
A beautiful story of endurance, identity, and memory in WWII Singapore, for fans of Min Jin Lee's Pachinko and Nguyen Phan Que Mai's The Mountains Sing
Singapore, 1942. As Japanese troops sweep down Malaysia and into Singapore, a village is ransacked. Only three survivors remain, one of them a tiny child.
In a neighbouring village, seventeen-year-old Wang Di is bundled into the back of a troop carrier and shipped off to a Japanese military rape camp. In the year 2000, her mind is still haunted by her experiences there, but she has long been silent about her memories of that time. It takes twelve-year-old Kevin, and the mumbled confession he overhears from his ailing grandmother, to set in motion a journey into the unknown to discover the truth.
Weaving together two timelines and two life-changing secrets, How We Disappeared is an evocative, profoundly moving and utterly dazzling novel heralding the arrival of a new literary star.
About This Edition
| ISBN: |
9781786075956 |
| Publication date: |
6th February 2020 |
| Author: |
JingJing Lee |
| Publisher: |
Oneworld an imprint of Oneworld Publications |
| Format: |
Paperback |
| Pagination: |
343 pages |
| Primary Genre |
Historical Fiction
|
