With a wisdom and maturity rarely found in a first novelist, Nora Okja Keller tells a heart wrenching and enthralling tale. Comfort Woman is the story of Akiko, a Korean refugee of World War II, and Beccah, her daughter by an American missionary. The two women are living on the edge of society-and sanity-in Honolulu, haunted by Akiko’s periodic encounters with the spirits of the dead, and by Beccah’s struggles to reclaim her mother from her past. Slowly and painfully Akiko reveals her tragic story as a “comfort woman” to Japanese soldiers. As Beccah uncovers these truths, she discovers her own strength and the precious gifts her mother has given her.
With a wisdom and maturity rarely found in a first novelist, Nora Okja Keller tells a heart wrenching and enthralling tale. Comfort Woman is the story of Akiko, a Korean refugee of World War II, and Beccah, her daughter by an American missionary. The two women are living on the edge of society-and sanity-in Honolulu, haunted by Akiko’s periodic encounters with the spirits of the dead, and by Beccah’s struggles to reclaim her mother from her past. Slowly and painfully Akiko reveals her tragic story as a “comfort woman” to Japanese soldiers. As Beccah uncovers these truths, she discovers her own strength and the precious gifts her mother has given her.