num_pages: 240
description: Possessing a wisdom and maturity rarely found in a first novelist, Korean-American writer Nora Okja Keller tells a heartwrenching and enthralling tale in this, her literary debut. Comfort Woman is the story of Akiko, a Korean refugee of World War II, and Beccah, her daughter by an American missionary. The two women are living on the edge of society—and sanity—in Honolulu, plagued by Akiko's periodic encounters with the spirits of the dead, and by Beccah's struggles to reclaim her mother from her past. Slowly and painfully Akiko reveals her tragic story and the horrifying years she was forced to serve as a "comfort woman" to Japanese soldiers. As Beccah uncovers these truths, she discovers her own strength and the secret of the powers she herself possessed—the precious gifts her mother has given her.A San Francisco Chronicle bestsellerIn 1995, Nora Okja Keller received the Pushcart Prize for "Mother Tongue", a piece that is part of Comfort Woman .
language: English
title: Comfort Woman
titlecomplete: Comfort Woman
genres: Fiction, Historical, War, Asia, Japan, Literature, Feminism, Asian Literature, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction
ratings_count: 1746
awards: awardedAt: 915177600000
name: Orange Prize
category: Fiction Longlist, awardedAt: 883641600000
name: American Book Award
publisher: Penguin Books