Heartbreaking family sagas are played out against the backdrop of social revolution in the nail-biting historical dramas by Mary Lynn Bracht and Wu Ming-Yi. I’ll also be supporting Amnesty International’s Imprisoned Writers Series by reading from the work of Freedom From Torture survivors, along with Antti Tuomainen. The author in my book is excellent and thank you for writing this little known or spoken about type of story in such and engaging and genuinely cared for manner.I’ll be at the Edbookfest this year to talk about my book, White Chrysanthemum, along with Wu Ming-Yi and his wonderful book, The Stolen Bicycle. One wants to immerse one's self and hear the heart of the real writing from the story teller. It does though make for more effort on the part of the listener. I felt she approached most sentences with the same intonation and luckily I'm able to tune this sort of reading out, lending my imagination to flavour the sentences. I do feel and I don't like to criticise narrators but in this case, I do feel the narrator needed more passion at times and certainly lacked textural layers in her vocal delivery for the complexities of such a whirlwind of emotional and often threatening moments depicted in the book. It was harrowing but excellently written. To open with this wonderful information of one said family and then traverse into the life of their eldest daughter, stolen and forced into prostitution by Japanese soldiers, I have to say I was aghast and desperately hooked on her plight and my need for her to prevail. I've always been intrigued by societies where women are recognised as by all as much more able to endure arduous, physically challenging and ultimately bread winning vocations like the Haenyeo female divers in the Korean province of Jeju. This story had my full undivided attention from the beginning. Riveting often painful, emotionally provocative. But pulling us back into the light are two women whose love for one another is strong enough to triumph over the evils of war.Ī riveting, immersive read in the vein of The Kite Runner and Memoirs of a Geisha. Switchbacking between Hana in 1943 and Emi as an old woman today, White Chrysanthemum takes us into a dark and devastating corner of history.

So begins the story of two sisters suddenly and violently separated by war. Terrified for her sister, Hana swims as hard as she can for the shore. Her mother has told her again and again never to be caught alone with one. One day Hana sees a Japanese soldier heading for where Emi is guarding the day's catch on the beach. Hana and her little sister Emi are part of an island community of haenyeo, women who make their living from diving deep into the sea off the southernmost tip of Korea. Random House presents the audiobook edition of White Chrysanthemum by Mary Lynn Bracht, read by Greta Jung.

Mary lynn bracht white chrysanthemum