In the Woods of Memory

“Generally regarded as Okinawa's most adventurous and promising writer of fiction today.”—Michael S. Molasky, University of Minnesota

In the Woods of Memory is a powerful, thought-provoking novel that focuses on two incidents during the Battle of Okinawa, 1945: the sexual assault on Sayoko, 17, by four US soldiers and her friend Seiji’s attempt at revenge. Narrations through nine points of view, Japanese and American, from 1945 to the present day reveal the full complexity of events and how war trauma inevitably ripples through the generations.

Akutagawa Prize–winner and activist Shun Medoruma was born in Okinawa. This is his first full-length work in English translation.