The Bonsai Tree

She was expected, Kate knew, to prove loyalty to her

mother-in-law, satisfying her every wish. Such obedience

here was virtue. If a wife and a mother both were drowning,

explained a proverb, a son should save his mother;

wives were two a penny ... In this modern age these

attitudes withdrew to shadows, but a residue remained.



Liberal-minded Jun Nagai, heir to a prominent business empire, brings his beautiful and intelligent English wife Kate Scott back to Japan after a whirlwind romance – a marriage his complex, powerful and traditional mother Itsuko naturally disapproves.



While Jun is pulled between the two cultures, owing loyalty to both, Kate is thrown into an unfamiliar world where her role of a wife lies within strict social constructs. Stripped of all romantic illusions, she struggles to retain her individuality. A shattering encounter leads her directly to the gritty abject underbelly of Kamagasaki – dumping ground for the destitutes and untouchables, a section ruled by gangsters and plyed by prostitutes, with no place in society.



First published in 1983, this is Meira Chand’s unforgettable novel of the clash of Western and Japanese cultures, now in an updated edition for a new generation of readers.