Ainoko — Jan Merlin

In this scathing depiction of Americaââ,¬â"¢s military presence during the US Occupation of Japan, an unmarried Japanese girl is banished from home to raise her Amerasian son by a US Navy sailor in the pleasure district of Osaka. Subjected to discrimination and contempt by the nationââ,¬â"¢s culture, the boy learns to be a pimp, a thief, and a prostitute. Being an outcast, he yearns for acceptance but when a world-renowned Japanese movie star befriends him, the boy cascades deeper into violence. Within its intricate and searing portrayal of a vanquished people immediately after the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Jan Merlinââ,¬â"¢s masterful novel reveals the customs and remnants of Old Nippon surviving amidst the ghastly rubble, until two decades of rage, pain, and passion explode as the Far East confronts West againââ,¬Â¦ on its own terms.