The Samurai's Garden: A Novel

Gail Tsukiyama

Mar 2017 · Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by David Shih

About this audiobook

The daughter of a Chinese mother and a Japanese father, Gail Tsukiyama uses the Japanese invasion of China during the late 1930s as a somber backdrop for her unusual story about a twenty-year-old Chinese painter named Stephen who is sent to his family's summer home in a Japanese coastal village to recover from a bout with tuberculosis. Here he is cared for by Matsu, a reticent housekeeper and a master gardener. Over the course of a remarkable year, Stephen learns Matsu's secret and gains not only physical strength but also profound spiritual insight. Matsu is a samurai of the soul, a man devoted to doing good and finding beauty in a cruel and arbitrary world, and Stephen is a noble student, learning to appreciate Matsu's generous and nurturing way of life and to love Matsu's soulmate, gentle Sachi, a woman afflicted with leprosy.

About the author

Gail Tsukiyama is the bestselling author of several novels, including Women of the Silk and A Hundred Flowers, as well as the recipient of the Academy of American Poets Award and the PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award. She lives in El Cerrito, California.

An AudioFile Earphones Award winner, David Shih narrated the History Channel documentary China's First Emperor and the Discovery Networks series Royal Inquest. His many television and film credits include roles in The Path, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, All My Children, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, and Saving Face.