An important book that is hard reading at times as we learn the story of one woman's life as a 'comfort woman' to the Japanese Army in Singapore during WW2. Thankfully, the author only devoted a couple of chapters to Wang-Di’s time as a comfort woman. Kevin, a young boy, weaves his way into her life half a century later uncovering hidden truths in two families. He is a bright spark in the darkness. This story is based on real-life women who were taken from their families during WWII and forced to be “comfort women” for Japanese soldiers. These women were forced into sexual slavery and endured starvation, deplorable conditions, diseases passed onto them from soldiers, and endless abuse. If they survived and were able to return to their families, they were viewed as traitors and shamed for their enslavement. As with most Singaporeans, I learned what civilians went through during the Japanese Occupation as I was growing up, some of it from stories that my relatives told in hushed, yet bitter voices, some of it from programmes, fictional and otherwise, on TV. The “accepted narrative” is openly discussed in textbooks and in the national newspaper. Every year, there is a day of remembrance for people who died during the occupation, especially for those who were captured and tortured for being part of the resistance. These were heroes and victims of a sort that people recognised and could contend with. Yet it remains largely unspoken that the Japanese raped local women and abducted them during the occupation – this has to do with the dreadful stigma attached to sexual violence in most of Asia, even today. The fact that Singapore is a tiny country only magnifies this. Everyone on the island is connected in one way or another, with one or two degrees of separation. In the 40s and 50s, to let anyone know that you’re a rape victim was to expose yourself to shame and condemnation for the rest of your life. For research, I trawled through hours of audio interviews; whenever rape or abduction was mentioned, the interviewee always made a point to emphasise that it happened to someone else, someone outside of the immediate family – a neighbour, the friend of a sister-in-law, a stranger.

A heartbreaking and powerful read. Did I mention this was heartbreaking? It shattered my heart and it’s stayed with me ever since. There were times I didn’t want to read any more but I did, as to stop would have felt like abandoning the characters to their fate alone. This book got to me in many ways, I’m not going to lie.

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Tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus. Our bodies are our gardens to the which our wills are gardeners." Fino a quando un giorno non scopre di essere incinta, non si sa di chi. Non si sa di chi tra i tanti. Riesce a scappare, ma poi stremata da tutto smarrisce il figlio. Riesce a fare ritorno dalla sua famiglia, ma resta un’emarginata, un simbolo della vergogna.

These are the two major characters of this novel and they are connected. Kevin tries to solve the puzzle that his grandmother has left him with unintentionally in the present. While Wang Di spends most of her time in the early years of World War 2. Storia della nostra scomparsa di Jing-Jing Lee affronta un pezzo di storia che forse da noi occidentali non è così tanto conosciuto: quello delle donne di conforto in Cina.I found this to be an occasionally frustrating and messy yet ultimately satisfying read. Its main strength was Jing-Jing Lee's skill at immersing the reader, and the chapters set during WWII really came to life. I do think a bit too much of the narrative focused on Kevin - not to the detriment of Wang Di's narrative, as I felt that her sections were properly fleshed out - it's more that Kevin himself added very little as a character. I tend to prefer historical fiction that doesn't have a past/present framing, and this was no exception; I kept wishing it would stay in the 1940s. That said, I do feel that Jing-Jing Lee ultimately justified this narrative decision with the way the story wrapped up, even if it wouldn't have been my first choice of how to tell it. Se penso a questi atti orribili sì, mi viene da piangere, mi manca il fiato e sto male. Ma finché leggevo non ero così rapita come mi aspettavo. Ripeto, mi mancava qualcosa.