I hate war. War kills. War maims. War orphans. And it leaves a deep scar not only on the land, that will take years to heal, but also in the hearts of those who are affected by the war. I am one of those who carry a deep emotional wound to this day, more than sixty years later. During World War II, under Japan, my father was imprisoned because he was a Christian minister who refused to bow down to the picture of the Japanese emperor. My elder brother...

"A sweeping novel set in Singapore during the years leading up to its independence from British colonial powers, about one young boy from a rural fishing family and the love story that will shape his life and complicate the fate of his larger community"--

Introduces popular themes in Japanese mythology, such as creation stories, the Oni, and the Sun goddess Amaterasu, and explains the importance of myth to the country's ancient and modern inhabitants.

An unnamed thirty-something portrait painter, abandoned by his wife, becomes caretaker of the home of an aging famous artist, Tomohiko Amada. When the younger man discovers an unknown painting in the attic, entitled "Killing Commendatore"--a painting that takes its cues from Mozart's opera Don Giovanni--he also discovers clues about Amada, his family and their involvement in a violent and failed plot to kill a Nazi leader in Vienna. As the painter...