Taken Captive: A Japanese POW's Story - Hardcover

Ooka Shohei

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0471142859 ISBN 13: 9780471142850

Publisher: Wiley, 1996

Synopsis

"I do not know whether I dozed off or passed out, but the nextthing I remember is gradually becoming aware of a blunt objectstriking my body over and over. Just as I realized it was a bootkicking me in the side, I felt my arm being grabbed roughly, and Ireturned to full consciousness.

"One GI had hold of my right arm, and another had his rifle pointedat me, nearly touching me.

"'Don't move. We're taking you prisoner,' the one with the riflesaid."

On January 25, 1945, Private Ooka Shohei of the Japanese ImperialArmy was captured by American forces in the Philippines. Near deathfrom starvation and acute malaria, he was nursed back to health byhis captors and shipped off to a POW camp. Taken Captive is hispowerful and poignant account of life as a prisoner of war. Longregarded as a literary classic in Japan, this extraordinary memoiris appearing in English for the first time.

There are no epic battles or grand scale heroics. This is anintimate, gripping, and ultimately enlightening true story of asophisticated, middle-aged scholar thrown into a primitive strugglefor survival. It is filled with moments of sublimeordinariness--prisoners passing time by playing "20 Questions"--andheartstopping encounters--a lone soldier decides whether or not toshoot an unsuspecting enemy soldier.

The harsh conditions, the daily routines that occupy a prisoner'stime, and above all, the psychological struggles and behavioralquirks of captives forced to live in close confinement are conveyedwith devastating simplicity and candor. Throughout, the authorconstantly probes his own conscience, questioning motivations anddecisions. What emerges is a multileveled portrait of an individualdetermined to retain his humanity in an uncivilizedenvironment.

In Taken Captive, Ooka Shohei provides much more than anunprecedented look at the POW experience from a Japanese point ofview. His stirring account offers a penetrating exploration ofJapanese society, and its values, as embodied by the microcosm ofhis fellow POWs. Recalling his wartime experiences, Ooka Shohei hascreated a brilliant work of rare honesty, insight, and emotionalsubtlety.

About this title

Review:

This is an extraordinary true-life POW story, told by a Japanese soldier captured by American forces during World War II. Ooka's concern with his imprisonment was not fear of brutality, but with how capture would look back home in Japan. In this endearing account, he relates how his American captors treated their prisoners as human beings, confusing the prisoners who saw themselves, through their own cultural filter, as dishonored wretches who had allowed capture rather than suicide or martyrdom. Ooka writes that this cultural dissonance prevented the Japanese POWs from "accepting the Americans' warmheartedness with simple gratitude."

From the Publisher:

One of the major figures in post-war Japanese literature presents a gripping autobiographical account of his years as a POW during WWII. In the first part of the book, Shohei concentrates on his own personal struggle and reveals the reflections of a man who suddenly found himself a hunted fugitive. The latter part deals with the behavior of people forced to live in confinement and brilliantly dissects the rootlessness of Japanese prisoners.

About this edition

• Publisher: Wiley
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0471142859
• ISBN 13: 9780471142850
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352