La Sposa della Seta by Oswald Wynd

 La Sposa della Seta

by Oswald Wynd published by Garzanti is an interesting book. When I started to reading it I found similarities with a non-fiction book published by Columbia Press and written by Vishakha N.Desai World as Family. In fact, both these protagonists, one of them Japanese, the fictional one Omi, and Vihakha, a real Indian lady, left the comfort zone of their countries for studying in the USA, and once returned home they were changed forever. 

Omi, a Japanese girl studying in the USA appreciateds a lot the Western philosophy of living and once returned in her country, she understands that very differently from the moment in which she left the country for the USA, there is a big closure and diffidence regarding the USA. 

The winds of war are mounting: her parents, opened-minded, returned to be pretty traditional Japanese folk, asks her to marry someone that they would have picked up. Omi is insofferent: she wants to live a different and more free existence and she doesn't recognize her country. So, she makes friendships with a woman who, later will be arrested. Being sunspected, because friend of this lady, but because she had an important father, Omi won't be arrested but will live a sort of exhile in the countryside, where the family has a house. There, she will study, she will live isolated, she will write a lot, she will have a brief relationship. Once returend she marries Ishii, a man in the silk business, and although her relationships with the husband are good, and they have a baby the husband is hiding something crucial. At the same time World War Second starts, and Japan enters in war. A war that will see the biggest destruction with the atomic bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: that's why Japan decided that it was better to end that war. These bombs apart, also some relatives of Omi died because of the horror of war. In that moment the husband of Ishii will take an important decision, like also Omi that will kill someone close to her from a life, for protecting the memory of her husband and doing what asked to her.

Intense, beauty.

Highly recommended. 

I thank Garzanti for the physical copy of the book.

Anna Maria Polidori