Brazil-Maru

January 1, 1992
Yamashita offers an enriching fictionalization of the settling of the northwestern corner of Brazil by socialist Japanese Christians.

August 1, 1992
Yamashita's wise and wily first novel, "Through the Arc of the Rain Forest," brought us into the future; her second carries us back to the past. In 1925, the "Brazil-Maru" transported 600 Japanese immigrants across the seemingly infinite ocean to Brazil and the promise of land, wealth, and freedom. Most were contract laborers, but a small, determined group of Christian families also made the journey, inspired by grand ideas for the creation of a new, communal civilization. These bold souls cleared the mighty forests and labored in the fields, 20sharing the hard work of nurturing and raising children and the emotionally draining cycles of calamity and fun, gossip and romance. Gradually, a leader emerges. Kantaro is flamboyant and extravagant, setting the isolated community on a turbulent course of progressive farming and culture that bridges the distance between country and city but, ultimately, ends in bankruptcy and dissolution. Five different characters relate the dramatic story of Esperanca, including an unrepentant Kantaro, his tireless wife, Haru, and young Ichiro, who remains loyal to his mentor long after Kantaro's profligacy is exposed. Yamashita's heightened sense of passion and absurdity, and respect for inevitability and personality, infuse this engrossing multigenerational immigrant saga with energy, affection, and humor. ((Reviewed Aug. 1992))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1992, American Library Association.)