Speak, Okinawa
- Schrijfster: Elizabeth Miki Brina (Verenigde Staten)
- Soort boek: memoires
- Taal: Engels
- Uitgever: Granta Books
- Verschijnt: 1 april 2021
- Omvang: 289 pagina’s
- Uitgave: gebonden boek / ebook
Recensie en waardering van het boek
- “Brina captivates in her stunning and intimate debut memoir . . . This nuanced tale goes both wide and deep, and is as moving as it is ambitious. Memoir lovers will be enthralled.” (Publishers Weekly)
- “Brina recounts, with piercing candidness and clarity, the almost claustrophobic world of an only child and her parents . . . The memoir is also a portrait of the devastating effects of imperialism and racism on a person’s identity, self-worth, and relationships–and offers a perspective on how a person can combat these legacies.” (Akemi Johnson, The Washington Post)
Flaptekst van het boek over Okinawa van Elizabeth Miki Brina
Here’s a story. On the U.S.-occupied island of Okinawa, an American soldier falls in love with a beautiful Japanese woman. He saves her from a life of grinding poverty. They settle in the States, to live out the suburban American Dream with their child.
Here’s another version. The U.S. military has occupied Okinawa since World War Two, after slaughtering a third of the island’s population; the beautiful Japanese woman lives in poverty and marries the soldier as a way to escape.
Here’s a third version. A little girl grows up with a mother who can’t pronounce her name. She meets blood relatives with whom she cannot communicate. She clings to a sense of whiteness that white peers will not let her claim. She is born as the convergence of these conflicting stories and as she grows up she must reclaim her own narrative.
Speak, Okinawa is Elizabeth Miki Brina’s courageous and heart-breaking testament to the struggle for belonging. It is a story about the immigrant experience; it is a story about how it feels to grow up biracial; it is a story about the island of Okinawa, from its first inhabitants to its colonisation by Japan and the United States. But above all, it is a story about reckoning with your history, and the links that tie you to your heritage and give you a sense of home within yourself.