The Japanese Lover: A Novel

Isabel Allende

Nov 2015 · Sold by Simon and Schuster

About this ebook

From New York Times bestselling author Isabel Allende, “a magical and sweeping” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) love story and multigenerational epic that stretches from San Francisco in the present-day to Poland and the United States during World War II.

In 1939, as Poland falls under the shadow of the Nazis, young Alma Belasco’s parents send her away to live in safety with an aunt and uncle in their opulent mansion in San Francisco. There, as the rest of the world goes to war, she encounters Ichimei Fukuda, the quiet and gentle son of the family’s Japanese gardener. Unnoticed by those around them, a tender love affair begins to blossom. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the two are cruelly pulled apart as Ichimei and his family—like thousands of other Japanese Americans—are declared enemies and forcibly relocated to internment camps run by the United States government. Throughout their lifetimes, Alma and Ichimei reunite again and again, but theirs is a love that they are forever forced to hide from the world.

Decades later, Alma is nearing the end of her long and eventful life. Irina Bazili, a care worker struggling to come to terms with her own troubled past, meets the elderly woman and her grandson, Seth, at San Francisco’s charmingly eccentric Lark House nursing home. As Irina and Seth forge a friendship, they become intrigued by a series of mysterious gifts and letters sent to Alma, eventually learning about Ichimei and this extraordinary secret passion that has endured for nearly seventy years.

Sweeping through time and spanning generations and continents, The Japanese Lover is written with the same keen understanding of her characters that Isabel Allende has been known for since her landmark first novel The House of the Spirits. The Japanese Lover is a moving tribute to the constancy of the human heart in a world of unceasing change.

Ratings and reviews

This is an epic love story, but really it touches on lots of heavy subjects. It starts right before WWII, and ends in the current decade. Many major events between those times are highlighted: Jewish people fleeing their home countries, Japan bombing Pearl Harbor, war, Japanese Americans being in camps, prejudice between different races, homosexuality, AIDS, sex trafficking, and more. All of these things happen in the lives of the main couple or someone close to them. There are several emotional parts. I didn’t break down crying, but so many things touched my heart. I definitely recommend it.

Loved it! It did not disappointed, although at the beginning was a little slow, it soon started to get more and more compelling that I struggled to put it down. A beautiful story of love, devotion and hope.

Passionate

About the author

Isabel Allende, born in Peru and raised in Chile, is a novelist, feminist, and philanthropist. She is one of the most widely read authors in the world, having sold more than eighty million copies of her twenty-eight books across forty-two languages. She is the author of several bestselling and critically acclaimed books, including The Wind Knows My Name, The House of the Spirits, Of Love and Shadows, and Eva Luna. She has received fifteen honorary doctorates, been inducted into the California Hall of Fame, and received the PEN Center Lifetime Achievement Award and the Anisfield-Wolf Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2014, President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, and in 2018, she received the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from the National Book Foundation. She lives in California with her husband and dogs. You can visit Isabel Allende at IsabelAllende.com or follow her on Instagram @AllendeIsabel, on Facebook at Facebook.com/IsabelAllende, and on X @IsabelAllende.