Fire Flowers

In this “promising literary debut,” three Japanese citizens and one American reporter rebuild their lives in the aftermath of Japan’s WWII surrender (The Independent).

Japan, 1945. The country has just surrendered to the Allied forces after suffering the devastation of nuclear warfare. Satsuko Takara and her teenage brother, Hiroshi, have lost both their parents, and each other, during the firestorm that devastated Tokyo five months before. Documenting the destruction of the war is Hal Lynch...