The novel introduces 16-year-old Hana who, while protecting her little sister Emi, is forcibly taken away by a Japanese soldier to become a “comfort woman” for the Japanese army. Thrusting a forgotten corner of history into the light, and already eliciting comparisons with Memoirs of a Geisha and The Kite Runner, Bracht’s novel was pre-empted in the US and the UK for six-figure sums within hours of final edits at last year’s London Book Fair. I feel like my mother and her friends are survivors of their own histories,” Mary Lynn Bracht says, as she explains the inspiration behind her moving début, White Chrysanthemum (Chatto, January), which has seen her literary career come into bloom.
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