Japan, 1993. That morning in a Kyoto hospital, Yuna could not have imagined that her first patient would be Amaa, her older sister—the woman they had not seen for more than thirty years. Amaa is terminally ill and urgently needs a bone marrow transplant from a close relative. But in her search for a donor, Yuna comes face to face with a fact that shatters the familiar picture of the past: Amaa had been an adopted child.
Trying to save her sister, Yuna begins to unravel the story of her own family and sets out for the northeast of China—the place where, half a century ago, the Manchukuo empire existed. She does not yet know that this journey will lead her to one of the most terrifying and carefully hidden crimes of World War II.
“Sakura Blooms at Night” is a direct, piercing novel about the complex and painful connection between China and Japan—about how war intertwines human destinies, and about the cost of a desperate fight for life.