Book Description

"After her husband's death, she raised two daughters alone and in two worlds at once, and became one of the earliest voices in Asian-American literature," Janice P. Nimura writes in the foreword. "Her life was a bridge from the nineteenth century to the twentieth, from the time-hallowed beauty and rigidity of a samurai household to the disorienting, forward-looking freedoms of the West."

"It is never wise for a Japanese woman, if she wishes to retain a position of influence and dignity, to say much on any subject. Actions, not words, are her most successful means of expression; but the time came when I saw that I must speak."

This is the story of one woman's remarkable life successfully navigating two very different cultures.

Beautifully told, this immigrant's account of an unforgettable journey is the story of a headstrong and empowered woman--an loyal wife, a widowed mother and a bilingual breadwinner--finding her way and finding her voice in a strange new world.

Follow in her footsteps and trace the remarkable trajectory of her life as she:

• Witnesses her father prepare for ritual seppuku and her mother burn down the ancestral home
• Bids an emotional farewell and sails across the ocean to marry a wealthy merchant in a new land
• Grieves at his loss and returns to Tokyo with her two daughters and mother-in-law, only to find her homeland just as alien as America, forcing her to reinvent herself again as the family breadwinner
• Returns to America with her children following the death of her mother-in-law