China Lover

Ian Buruma

A transfixing portrait of a woman and a nation eagerly burying the past to transform the future. In his enthralling new novel, Ian Buruma uses the life of the starlet Yamaguchi Yoshiko as a lens through which to understand the lure of erotic fantasies in the conquest of nations. The China Lover reveals the catastrophic results when theatre and politics blend in a lethal manner. In her earliest days Ri Koran-a Japanese girl, born in Manchuria, who sang and acted in Japanese and Chinese-was forced to keep her Japanese identity a secret, to become a Manchurian singer and movie star playing Chinese beauties who fell in love with brave Japanese empire builders. In U.S.-occupied Tokyo, she returned to the screen as Yamaguchi Yoshiko, starring in films approved by American censors and designed to promote American-style democracy. Before long, she decided to reinvent herself yet again by...