Intensely moving stories that tell of the absurd violence of war, and tenderly depict the animals and children caught in its vortex. In 1945, Akiyuki Nosaka watched the Allied firebombing of Kobe kill his adoptive parents, and then witnessed his sister starving to death. The shocking and blisteringly memorable stories of The Cake Tree in the Ruins are based on his own experiences as a child in Japan during the Second World War. They are stories of a lonely whale searching the oceans for a mate, who sacrifices himself for love; of a mother desperately trying to save her son with her tears; of a huge, magnificent tree which grows amid the ruins of a burnt-out town, its branches made from the sweetest cake imaginable. Profound, heartbreaking and aglow with a piercing beauty, they express the chaos and terror of conflict, yet also how love can illuminate even the darkest moment.

The Cake Tree in the Ruins (Pushkin Collection)

Literature & Fiction

NOSAKA, Akiyuki

United States

Pushkin Collection

A whale falls in love with a military submarine, and dies courting her; a mother caught in a fire following a bombing gives all her body's water to save her son, and her desiccated form turns into a kite; a wolf rescues a sick child abandoned by her parents, only to die himself at the hand of men. However, bunkers can also become real homes, a small Japanese girl and an American POW briefly understand each other and a miraculous tree feeds starving children... This is war, no doubt, but told by someone who understands how children truly experience war and its aftermath - the bombings and parents' deaths, the life of orphans who roam the streets, the starvation and blind violence in a society beyond destruction. Akiyuki Nosaka remembers what it was like to be a child caught in war-torn Japan in 1945, and he retells his experiences in this collection of powerful and beautifully expressive stories for children.

The Whale that Fell in Love with a Submarine

Short Stories & Anthologies

Pushkin Children's Books

LA TOMBE DES LUCIOLES

Genre Fiction

PICQUIER

LES PORNOGRAPHES

La Vigne des morts sur le col des Dieux décharnés

Atlan, Corinne

Philippe Picquier

La tumba de las luciernagas--Las algas americanas

Acantilado

Estas dos novelas, 'La tumba de las luciérnagas' (octubre de 1967) y 'Las algas americanas' (septiembre de 1967), levantaron gran expectación al publicarse, y en 1968 ambas ganaron el...

La tumba de las luciérnagas. Las algas americanas: (Dos novelas breves) (Narrativa Del Acantilado / Cliff Narrative) (Spanish Edition)

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Books by NOSAKA, Akiyuki