Long the Imperial Way

Just as All Quiet On The Western Front was the first literary bridge between Germany and America after World War I, so Long The Imperial Way was the first between Japan and America since World War II. "I wrote the book," says Hanama Tasaki, "during the year spent in bed with tuberculosis. It is an amalgam of many moods and aims, one of which was to straighten out the jumbled emotions-predominantly guilt-complex-under which I had labored since the Surrender. . . . The book was also an outlet for the strong yearning for beauty which replaced the great void after the war."

The first novel since after World War II to come from a Japanese soldier and written in English, it is a brilliant, exciting, and illuminating book. In "Long the Imperial Way" Hanama Tasaki creates a real, guttural image of war and its impact on soldiers during and after conflict.