How We Disappeared: LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2020

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It is this cassette player that he uses to record a cryptic confession that his grandmother makes on her deathbed. It seems that his father may not have been his grandmother’s son at all. The confession is also a plea for forgiveness that his grandmother never found his real parents.

Apostolides, Zoë (28 June 2019). "How We Disappeared — the open wounds of a comfort woman". Financial Times . Retrieved 7 May 2022.

Wang Di is a disappointment to her parents. Why? Because she was born a girl instead of a boy. The name her parents gave here “Wang” meaning hope and “Di” meaning boy, a constant reminder of this disappointment every time somebody calls her name. I’d highly recommend this book but do take your time with it, as I said previously, this book is not easy. It’s not light, it’s heavy but it’s important for us to know this story. Jing-Jing Lee was born and raised in Singapore. She earned a master's degree in creative writing from Oxford in 2011 and has since seen her poetry and short stories published in various journals and anthologies. How We Disappeared is her first novel. She currently lives in Amsterdam. Then there’s the story of her husband. They have both suffered in different ways but find it hard to talk about it. He’s affectionately known as ‘Old One’, and Wang Di needs to know what he experienced during the war. She’s never admitted to him what happened to her – the shame is too great. And that’s what got me. despite everything this poor woman has endured, she’s the one to feel shame. HOW WE DISAPPEARED isn't a bad book by any means. I found it flawed, but there were parts of it I enjoyed. It doesn't shy away from the atrocities of war, and the casualties of the war in the form of women who were taken against their will and ill-used by soldiers who saw them as objects ripe for play or abuse. I also liked how language played a somewhat central role, and how the meanings of certain characters and words were mentioned. I'm currently learning Chinese right now, and it was really exciting to recognize certain romanticized words, like di, and even some of the characters. This imbued the novel with a relevance for me that went far deeper than the surface storyline.

Weaving together two time lines and two very big secrets, this stunning debut opens a window on a little-known period of history, revealing the strength and bravery shown by numerous women in the face of terrible cruelty. Drawing in part on her family’s experiences, Jing-Jing Lee has crafted a profoundly moving, unforgettable novel about human resilience, the bonds of family and the courage it takes to confront the past. Change the plan you will roll onto at any time during your trial by visiting the “Settings & Account” section. What happens at the end of my trial?

I found this to be an occasionally frustrating and messy yet ultimately satisfying read. Its main strength was Jing-Jing Lee's skill at immersing the reader, and the chapters set during WWII really came to life. I do think a bit too much of the narrative focused on Kevin - not to the detriment of Wang Di's narrative, as I felt that her sections were properly fleshed out - it's more that Kevin himself added very little as a character. I tend to prefer historical fiction that doesn't have a past/present framing, and this was no exception; I kept wishing it would stay in the 1940s. That said, I do feel that Jing-Jing Lee ultimately justified this narrative decision with the way the story wrapped up, even if it wouldn't have been my first choice of how to tell it. This not-knowing when it came to my parents; things I’d never thought about, even if they were clear as day, clear as the fact that my parents had their own parents, had their own childhoods and histories. And then one day you open a drawer and out come all the secrets that have just been sitting quietly, waiting to be found, even though you never thought about them, never suspected they existed in the first place. The book is set in wartime Singapore, a setting to which I could relate due to my grandparents' own experiences of Japanese occupation during World War II.

My parents are not the literary type by any stretch of the imagination – I’ve never seen my father read a book and my mother only had two years of education and is semi-illiterate. I learned to read in English using audiobooks as I was raised in Chinese by very pragmatic, baby-boomer parents. Even as a child I harboured a secret desire to create, and to write, but this would be tantamount to telling my family that I wanted to join the circus. In an effort to accede to their wishes, I started my college education at a Singaporean university, reading social science while doing a minor in business studies. I soon became depressed because it was clear that what I was doing (and the future this path would lead to) would make me utterly miserable. I applied to the diploma course in creative writing at Oxford and got in, much to the chagrin of my father. After I finished the diploma, I applied to the master’s. This has allowed me to practise writing full-time and, more than anything, to have enough confidence in my abilities as a writer to attempt starting (and finishing) a complete work of fiction.”This book follows the twelve-year-old Kevin's zealous journey to discern the truth about his grandmother Wang Di. Kevin is trying to discover what happened to his grandmother during 1942 when the Japanese troops rummaged Singapore. Wang Di was unfortunately shipped to the military rape camp in Japan. She sacrificed her sacrilegious concept of family for her own family. But did it go in vain? This book will give you the answer. How We Disappeared is a powerful, sometimes painful, read, whose characters and incidents will remain with you.

And then, after the horror during what was supposed to be her best years, how her mother's words, the shame foisted on her by herself, her family, and everyone around her, had dictated the silence that shadowed her every move after the war." Storia della nostra scomparsa’ non è solo un romanzo di narrativa. È una parte importante della nostra storia contemporanea che spesso viene lasciata ai margini e non raccontata. Invece tutti dovremmo conoscerla. Wang Di, come molte altre ragazze all’epoca, viene strappata alla sua famiglia dai soldati giapponesi che hanno occupato Singapore nel ‘42 durante la seconda guerra mondiale. Hi Readers! I am writing this review from the cozy bed in a resort at Lonavala. I have 4 days off, so I am away on a staycation! There is a lot of relaxing time to read, write & sleep. Unfortunately, like majority of the resorts, this one has dim light in the rooms, in which I just cannot get any reading done. So, here I am pondering over my thoughts on the last book I read. Hope you enjoy the review as much as I struggled to find the perfect words for it! ~~WRITING STYLE~~A historical novel about "comfort women" in Singapore restores the dignity of the survivors and criticizes the misogyny that marked their lives. Jing-Jing Lee explains what inspired her to write her Women’s Prize longlisted novel How We Disappeared, and how her own family’s story during the Japanese occupation of Singapore came to mirror the lives of her characters.