Your one stop for finding multiple professional reviews of recently released books.
The China Lover by Ian Buruma
The China Lover is a novel that revolves around the true story of Yamaguchi Yoshiko, a woman born in Manchuria to Japanese parents. Her first claim to fame was as a Chinese actress in Japanese propaganda movies during World War II, which was done convincingly enough that the Chinese government charged her with collaborating with the enemy before realizing she was actually Japanese. She married an architect and a diplomat, acted in Hollywood movies, and served for 20 years in the Japanese parliament. Her story is told from the perspective of three different men from three different parts of her life. Ian Buruma's novel has received mixed reviews with the New Statesman saying, "And yet, despite its failure to show or provoke empathy, The China Lover is an extraordinary feat of applied intelligence, and (I worry I haven't made this clear) gripping."
