The Diplomat’s Daughter

The Diplomats Daughter, outwardly a meditation on love in a time of war, pushes boundaries to reveal a sensitive exploration of three young adults forced into confronting the fragility of a world where, as Yeats once so aptly noted, the center cannot hold. Through Emi Kato, the novels heroine (and eponymous diplomats daughter), we are introduced to separate, but equally harrowing, representations of the decaying human condition: Anti-Semitic Austria, American internment camps, squalid Shanghai ghettos, austerity and starvation in war-time Japan, and the blood stained South Pacific front lines.

The breadth of the novel is enormous, and yet author Karin Tanabe is able to gather each thread with a deftness that provides an incredibly satisfying experience for those who like their historical fiction to be cinematically epic. While there are no shortage of books revolving around WWII, The Diplomats Daughter, differs in that it offers a chance to delve into lesser known atrocities of the era. I was particularly moved by the depiction of Shanghai, where Leo Hartmann, Emis childhood sweetheart, finds himself struggling to survive with his family after fleeing Nazi Austria. Tanabe show us that while Leo avoids certain death due to the benevolence of the Japanese, he is still marginalized by their alliance with the Axis powers, and that his Chinese neighbors suffer even more. Its this kind of give with one hand, take from the other observation that makes the novel so powerful. Tanabe has a knack for illustrating the contradictory grey areas that come from the political clashing with the human.

I was a big fan of Karin Tanabes historical fiction novel, The Gilded Years, and was happy to find that her usual eye for detail and vivid characterizations remain keen in this latest effort. Definitely check out The Diplomats Daughter if you liked The Gilded Years (and if you havent read that, I recommend picking it up as well!)

There are myriad books set during WWII and I have read a fair number of them. The Diplomats Daughter is an enjoyable and easy read. The story moves quickly and I was interested to find out what happened next. However, comparisons to All the Light We Cannot See are unfounded. The prose in Anthony Doerrs book is gorgeous. Ms. Tanabe is a good story teller but the writing is not lyrical.

This book takes place after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and involves three young people. Emi Kato, whose father is a Japanese diplomat, has traveled extensively. When the story opens she is living in Vienna and has fallen in love with Leo Hartmann. His parents are wealthy Austrian Jews who ultimately flee to Shanghai to escape the Nazis. Emi and her family must also leave Vienna and travel to the US. She and her mother end up in an internment camp in Texas. There she meets Christian Lange, whose wealthy German parents are wrongly accused and arrested for being Nazi sympathizers. Emi and Christian meet and fall in love in the horrible camp. They are separated when Emi and her mother are sent back to Japan. Once back in Japan, Emis parents are fearful of bombings in Tokyo, so they send her to a remote village to wait out the war. Conditions are also terrible there. Emi worries about her two loves; Leo in a ghetto in Shanghai and Christian who has enlisted in the military and is fighting in Japan.

The evolving story is actually not as hokey as my synopsis. I was invested in how things turned out for the three main characters. All three of them were privileged teens and they all grew up and matured through the story. I appreciated the impact of WWII on various countries that are not usually highlighted in that genre of fiction. The ending was hopeful, but not a tied in a bow happy ending, which I also appreciated. This is a pleasant addition to fiction about WWII, but there are better books especially if you value well-written prose and more complex characters and story. I read this for book club and this was a solid B grade for most members.

A beautifully written novel that transports the reader to the World War II era, this story stays with you and resonates quite a bit, especially given current political events around the world. Told from three different points of view, this book portrays the devastation that war can cause on a personal level, while keeping a quietly optimistic tone, which enhances the story-telling from the typical rehash of World War II-set reads to a poignant novel about three young people and their journeys to stay alive through the war – and perhaps even come out with something resembling hope at war’s end.

I gave this book a 5 star rating because it was an interesting way of presenting a WWII romance story. Not the usual boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl, then boy goes to war. Instead it is girl meets boy, boy must flee for his life. Girl meet new boy, girl must leave new boy. New boy goes to war in hopes of finding girl.

This story not only tells about the German treatment of Jews, but of how the Japanese treated the Chinese. Also how Americans treated other Americans, by way of interrment camps, and repartion to Japan, Italy and Germany.

Also, Ms. Tanabe, did show that the Japanese and Chinese governments try to save as many Jews as the Nazi’s would let them by giving them passports and visas to their respective countries.

This is my favourite read of this year so far & will probably remain my favourite by the time the year ends. I adored everything about this story & its characters & I cannot wait to write my full length review on my blog.

The Diplomat’s Daughter is in part a story of love, but is also a story of hope, tragedy & survival. I read scenes unlike any other I’ve read before & also learnt things about the war that I did not know before. This book is beautiful in every way & Karin Tanabe has done an incredible job with it. I was given an advanced copy of this book to review & I cannot say how glad I am that I was.

Disclaimer: I was sent a copy of this book by the publisher in return for an honest review.

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