Butterfly, A novel
Book Author Julie O\\\'Yang
DescriptionSet against the backdrop of the SecondWorld War / Sino-Japanese war (1931-1945), the story centres around the fatal love between a married Chinese woman and a young Japanese soldier. However, the fantastic tale is not as simple as its plot suggests. In the forties of the 20th century, one summer day, on the bending shore of the magical, eternalriver Yangtze, a woman met a young stranger she falls in love with. But he can't love her back, and she can't love him if she would have known why he hascome here to find her and what kind of cruel crime the young man has committed...
Butterfly is a modern fairy tale that explores passion beyond all forbidden boundaries and love tested to its limits to defy even death. Taking a stab atsensitive historical, social issues such as the Rape of Nanking, the question arises, what is love? Where is the salvation in all the heartlessness of mankind? Are we able to love, a deed that is so often taken for granted? Perhaps love is neither simple nor always pleasant or even inhuman. In the end the protagonists have to undergo a metamorphosis in order to be reunited againon the bank of the Yangtze river where they met seven decades ago.