Justine's Review

A woman’s story told on reflection of her time as a comfort woman after the fall of Singapore. At the same time, a young boy is searching for the meaning of his grandmother’s last words – “Forgive me.” Excellent!

Other Reviews

Publisher Review: A beautiful, stunningly ambitious tale of endurance, identity, and memory, for fans of Min Jin Lee's Pachinko and Georgia Hunter's We Were the Lucky Ones.

Synopsis

The heart-rending story of survival and endurance in Japanese-occupied Singapore

Singapore, 1942. As Japanese troops sweep down Malaysia and into Singapore, a village is ransacked, leaving only three survivors, 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 brothel. After sixty years of silence, what she saw and experienced there still haunts her.

In the year 2000, twelve-year-old Kevin is sitting beside his ailing grandmother when he overhears a mumbled confession. He sets out to discover the truth, wherever it might lead, setting in motion a chain of events he could never have foreseen.

Weaving together two timelines and two very big secrets, this evocative, profoundly moving and utterly dazzling debut opens a window on a little-known period of history, and heralds the arrival of a thrilling new literary star.