Fireworks in March

Author: Li Bihua
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-06-01
Features: A poignant reunion in modern China, featuring a "comfort woman" and a labor camp inmate. Separated for thirty-eight years in the Northeastern China's vast wilderness, they were miraculously found in the late spring of 1999, thanks to the efforts of the author and the assistance of Heilongjiang's computer network. The book tells the story of a 78-year-old woman, Yuan Linzhen, who was lured to Hubei during Japan's invasion of China and sought to find her forcibly separated husband, Liao Kui. Li Bihua records in the book the entire process of being moved by Yuan Linzhen, her willingness to help fulfill her search for her husband, and her use of various methods and channels to assist Yuan Linzhen, who was then living in Wuhan, in finding Liao Kui, who had moved to Shandong. When they found Liao Kui, he was already disabled in both legs. Li Bihua accompanied Yuan Linzhen throughout this nearly impossible search journey until the very end. The novelist Li Bihua abandoned her usual brilliant prose in this book, instead following a deeply moving and true story, yet still demonstrated a remarkable level of literary skill. What makes the book most precious is the interaction and emotional involvement between the author and the protagonist, which transcends a single historical fact. Yuan Linzhen's story is actually a microcosm of the 200,000 Chinese "comfort women" who suffered during Japan's invasion of China.