The Tent of Orange Mist

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sean.scott, February 11, 2007 (view all comments by sean.scott)
During the Sino-Japanese conflict before WWII, Japanese soldiers kidnapped thousands of young women, putting them to work as sex slaves for their officers. Paul West tells the story of Scald Ibis, an intellectual 16-year-old held captive in her own home in Nanking. Scald Ibis becomes the favorite concubine of Hayashi, the colonel who runs the Tent of Orange Mist, as the bordello comes to be known.

West's strong, finely wrought prose is at once tender in its texture and cruel in its lucidity; his characters are delineated vividly, with power and psychological depth. "The language thrilled and appalled him," the narrator says at one point. When West's pen traces appalling circumstances, the thrill is not mere sensationalism-it is sensation itself, technique and emotion joining forces to scale the reader's spine.

This fictional glance at a neglected episode in history is a profoundly moral book, as well as a rare aesthetic pleasure.

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Product Details

ISBN:

9780879517922

Author:

West, Paul

Publisher:

Overlook Press

Location:

Woodstock, N.Y. :

Subject:

Historical

Subject:

Fiction

Subject:

History

Subject:

China

Subject:

Historical - General

Subject:

Nanking (China) History Fiction.

Subject:

Nanjing (Jiangsu Sheng, China) History Fiction.

Subject:

Sino-Japanese Conflict, 19

Subject:

Nanjing

Subject:

General Fiction

Subject:

Sino-Japanese War, 1937-1945

Subject:

China History 1937-1945.

Copyright:

1997

Series Volume:

v. 356

Publication Date:

September 1997

Binding:

Paperback

Grade Level:

General/trade

Language:

English

Illustrations:

Yes

Pages:

272

Dimensions:

8.04x5.44x.78 in. .80 lbs.