I like the kind of books which evoke emotions on several levels leaving me wrecked, but also incredibly content. Set in Singapore, How We Disappeared centers on Wang Di, an elderly woman who survived Japanese occupation during WWII by being forced into serving as a comfort woman.

This not-knowing when it came to my parents; things I’d never thought about, even if they were clear as day, clear as the fact that my parents had their own parents, had their own childhoods and histories. Ero davvero molto incuriosita da Storia della nostra scomparsa perché ammetto essere una di quelle persone che delle case di conforto non ne sapeva nulla. The personal shame and the fear of abandonment from families kept secrets locked tightly in one's heart and in one's psyche.Especially not your future husband,” she is reminded of that shame every day in the new housing block, with the other inhabitants shunning the cardboard auntie who talks to herself.

She wanted to focus attention on the " comfort women" taken to work as slaves in Japanese military brothels, unlike other fiction about the occupation of Singapore which focused on resistance violence and male prisoners of war.An elderly woman is haunted by her past as a "comfort woman," while many people would prefer to cover up their family member’s tragic history. He nodded to thank her as she sat down and held the sidebar on the bed, and wanted to start talking before she got up again to do something else, like pour another tumbler of water or tuck the sheet under his feet.