The Translation of Love

Lynne Kutsukake skillfully constructs her first novel, The Translation of Love, around the aftereffects of World War II on Japanese in the US and Canada, as well as in occupied Japan. The internment of Japanese and citizens of Japanese descent living in North America has become well-known, but the fact that life did not return to “normal” immediately after their release from the concentration camps less so. Of course, the war devastation was at a horrific level in much of Japan, especially in Tokyo, where day-to-day living was often an incomprehensible struggle.