The Cake Tree in the Ruins
Akiyuki Nosaka
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars
4.25
· 8 ratings · 162 pages · Published: 05 Apr 1975
In 1945, Akiyuki Nosaka watched the Allied firebombing of Kobe kill his adoptive parents, and then witnessed his sister starving to death. The shocking and blisteringly memorable stories of The Cake Tree in the Ruins are based on his own experiences as a child in Japan during the Second World War.
They are stories of a lonely whale searching the oceans for a mate, who sacrifices himself for love; of a mother desperately trying to save her son with her tears; of a huge, magnificent tree which grows amid the ruins of a burnt-out town, its branches made from the sweetest cake imaginable.
Profound, heartbreaking and aglow with a piercing beauty, they express the chaos and terror of conflict, yet also how love can illuminate even the darkest moment.
Tagged as:
- war/big battles 3
- magical realism 3
- world war II 3
- historical 3
- historical fiction 2
- literary fiction 2
- protagonists of colour 2
- asian mc 2
- military, war & conflict 1
- 20th century 1
- Add topics
- format - reader age
- anthology 1
- adult fiction 1