Kami and Kaze: A Story of Occupied Japan

"Unfolds in sharply-written, understated scenes." -The Japan Times From 1945-1952, Japan was occupied by America. It was America's most significant experience of being a colonial government. For the Japanese, it was a period of suspicion and humiliation. For the Americans, it was a chance to experience a people they had only known across the battlefield. Despite the brevity of the contact, some Americans left with a lifelong love for the country. This is their story.

Wena Poon is an American novelist and photographer. Her first novel Alex y Robert, about a Texan woman bullfighter in Spain, was adapted by the BBC and broadcast as a 10-episode Radio 4 series. Her play The Wood Orchid, about the Chinese woman warrior Hua Mulan, was professionally staged in Westminster Abbey, London by the Bush Theatre. Author of 13 books of literary fiction, Wena won the UK’s Willesden Herald Short Story Prize and was nominated for France’s Prix Hemingway and the UK’s Bridport Prize for Poetry. She was also a two-time nominee for Ireland’s Frank O’Connor Award and the Singapore Literature Prize. Born and raised in Singapore, Wena is an honors graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School. She is a lawyer by profession. Her website is www.wenapoon.com.