Abstract: »Chang-rae Lee’s A Gesture Life (1999) and Christina Park’s The Homes We Build on Ashes (2015) abound in home-/homeland-related themes. Their main protagonists, Doc Hata and Nara, are troubled by past traumatic events intertwined with the history of their ancestral homeland. Their experience of loss dominates the memories they have of the place they once called their home, where their saga of multiple displacements began. They also share remorse over failing to protect someone close. At the same time, Doc Hata’s reminiscences of Kkutaeh and Minjoo’s narrative of her accidental kidnapping and subsequent afflictions, punctuated with Nara’s factual input, offer a near-historical portrayal of Japanese military sexual slavery. This chapter explores how the themes of home/homeland and Japanese military sexual slavery intersect in the two works. Four main intersections will be identified: (1) the implications of the protagonists’ names; (2) storylines and narration; (3) safety and flight; and (4) the main protagonists’ diasporic homes.« (Source: SpringerLink)

Wikipedia: History of Asia: History of Japan / Shōwa era | History of Asia: History of Korea / Korea under Japanese rule | Literature: American literature / Chang-rae Lee | Literature: Canadian literature | Literature: Works about comfort women / A Gesture Life | Prostitution: Forced prostitution / Comfort women | Sex and the law: Wartime sexual violence / Wartime sexual violence in World War II | War: Pacific War / Japanese war crimes