Garden Of Evening Mists

Product Description

SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2012. Malaya 1949. After studying law at Cambrige & time spent helping to prosecute Japanese war criminals Yun Ling Teoh herself the scarred lone survivor of a brutal Japanese wartime camp seeks solace among the jungle fringed plantations of Northern Malaya where she grew up as a child. There she discovers Yugiri the only Japanese garden in Malaya & its owner & creator the enigmatic Aritomo exiled former gardener of the Emperor of Japan. Despite her hatred of the Japanese Yun Ling seeks to engage Aritomo to create a garden in Kuala Lumpur in memory of her sister who died in the camp. Aritomo refuses but agrees to accept Yun Ling as his apprentice until the monsoon comes. Then she can design a garden for herself. As the months pass Yun Ling finds herself intimately drawn to her sensei & his art while outside the garden the threat of murder & kidnapping from the guerrillas of the jungle hinterland increases with each passing day. But the Garden of Evening Mists is also a place of mystery. Who is Aritomo & how did he come to leave Japan? Why is it that Yun Lings friend & host Magnus Praetorius seems to almost immune from the depredations of the Communists? What is the legend of Yamashitas Gold & does it have any basis in fact? & is the real story of how Yun Ling managed to survive the war perhaps the darkest secret of all?