White Chrysanthemum
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4.7 • 14 Ratings
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- £4.99
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- £4.99
Publisher Description
Winner of the Writers' Guild Award for Best Debut Novel
Longlisted for the Authors' Club First Novel Award
'Look for your sister after each dive. Never forget. If you see her, you are safe.'
Hana and her little sister Emi are part of an island community of haenyo, women who make their living from diving deep into the sea off the southernmost tip of Korea.
One day Hana sees a Japanese soldier heading for where Emi is guarding the day’s catch on the beach. Her mother has told her again and again never to be caught alone with one. Terrified for her sister, Hana swims as hard as she can for the shore.
So begins the story of two sisters suddenly and violently separated by war. Moving between Hana in 1943 and Emi as an old woman today, White Chrysanthemum takes us into a dark and devastating corner of history — and two women whose love for one another is strong enough to triumph over the evils of war.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Bracht's debut novel explores the horrors of war and the fortitude of familial bonds. In 1943 Korea, 16-year-old Hana is a haenyeo, a female diver who helps support her family with the catches she finds in the sea. But her life is forever altered when, in an attempt to hide her little sister, Emi, from a Japanese soldier, she is captured and forced to work at a brothel as a prostitute for Japanese soldiers in Manchuria. The story jumps forward to 2011, when Emi is in Seoul to visit her daughter, to find her sister, and to participate in the weekly Wednesday demonstrations that are held in front of the Japanese embassy to demand justice for the "comfort women" who were forced to become prostitutes during World War II. Emi has carried her guilt about Hana's abduction for decades, but now believes she may finally have a chance to find out what happened to her sister. Masterfully crafted, Bracht's mesmerizing debut novel is rich with historical detail and depth of emotion. This is a memorable story about the courage of Korean women during the Second World War.
