Plum Wine

Bottles of homemade plum wine link two worlds, two eras, and two lives through the eyes of Barbara Jefferson, a young American teaching at a Tokyo university. When her surrogate mother, Michi, dies, Barbara inherits an extraordinary gift: a tansu chest filled with bottles of homemade plum wine wrapped in sheets of rice paper covered in elegant calligraphy--one bottle for each of the last twenty years of Michi's life.

Why did Michi leave her memoirs to Barbara, who cannot read Japanese? Seeking a translator, Barbara turns to an enigmatic pottery artist named Seiji, who will offer her a companionship as tender as it is forbidden. But as the two lovers unravel the mysteries of Michi's life, a story that draws them through the aftermath of World War II and the hidden world of the hibakusha, Hiroshima survivors, Barbara begins to suspect that Seiji may be hiding the truth about Michi's past--and a heartbreaking secret of his own.

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 03/27/2007
ISBN: 9780385340830
Pages: 352
Weight: 0.58lbs
Size: 8.20h x 5.28w x 0.73d