A Single Swallow
Translated by Nicky Harman
About
August 15, 1945 — the day Emperor Hirohito announced Japan's surrender. Three men who survived the war in a Chinese village make a pact: after death, their ghosts will return every year to this spot. Seventy years later, the pledge is kept. American missionary Pastor Billy, gunner's mate Ian Ferguson, and Chinese soldier Liu Zhaohu gather as spirits, unraveling their memories of the war and the woman they all loved — Ah Yan, known as Swallow, who suffered the war's worst atrocities and somehow found the dignity to survive. Zhang Ling weaves three men's accounts into a single woman's story — each memory adding a dimension the others couldn't see. The ghost-narration isn't a gimmick; it's the only way these truths could be spoken. A Single Swallow is a war novel told by the dead — because only the dead have nothing left to hide.
