“I am still unable to leave the burnt-out ruins.” Akiyuki Nosaka, 2014. In 1945, Akiyuki Nosaka watched the Allied firebombing of Kobe kill his adoptive parents, and then witnessed his sister starving to death. The shocking and blisteringly memorable stories of The Cake Tree in the Ruins are based on his own experiences as a child in Japan during the Second World War. They are stories of a lonely whale searching the oceans for a mate, who sacrifices himself for love; of a mother desperately trying to save her son with her tears; of a huge, magnificent tree which grows amid the ruins of a burnt-out town, its branches made from the sweetest cake imaginable. Profound, heartbreaking and aglow with a piercing beauty, they express the chaos and terror of conflict, yet also how love can illuminate even the darkest moment.
| japanese title: | Sensou douwashuu |
| notes: | Contents: The Whale That Fell in Love with a Submarine; The Parrot and the Boy; The Mother That Turned into a Kite; The Old She-Wolf and the Little Girl; The Red Dragonfly and the Cockroach; The Prisoner of War and the Little Girl; The Cake Tree in the Ruins; The Elephant and Its Keeper; A Soldier’s Family; My Home Bunker; A Balloon in August; The Soldier and the Horse |
| subjects: | Children and war World War II |
| genre: | Fiction |
| ISBN: | 9781782274186 |
| OCLC number: | 1022085029 |
| publisher: | Pushkin Collection |
| publication place: | London |
| japanese publication date: | 2003 |
| english publication date: | 2018 |
| document type: | Book |
| description: | 157 pages ; 17 cm |