Welcome.
Yuko Taniguchi was born in Yokohama, Japan in 1975. At the age of fifteen, she came to the United States and attended high school in Maryland, obtaining her collegiate degrees in Minnesota where she continues to make her home.
Yuko's debut novel The Ocean in the Closet, came out in May 2007 from Coffee House Press. It has since won/been nominated for the following awards:
• 2008 Kiriyama Prize Notable Book • 15th Annual Skipping Stones Honor Awards • Finalist for ForeWord Magazine's Editor's Choice Award (winners to be announced in May, 2008) • Honorable Mention, The 2007 Gustayus Myers Center Outstanding Book Awards Advancing Human Rights
The Ocean in the Closet
A girl reaches across an ocean to heal three generations from the aftermath of war.
Nine-year-old Helen Johnson can’t understand why her mother locks Helen and her
brother in the closet of their 1975 California home or why her father, recently returned
from Vietnam, seems so distant. On the other side of the ocean, Helen’s great-uncle
Hideo still struggles with the death of his sister during the occupation of Japan after World War II. When Helen travels to Japan to meet Hideo they start to unravel the circumstances of her mother’s adoption from Japan and the role that both World War II and the Vietnam War play in her family’s legacy. A lovely paean to the strength and resilience of the young and the capacity for love and forgiveness in the old, The Ocean in the Closet is a call for peace and understanding in dark times.
Learn more about The Ocean in the Closet.
Buy The Ocean in the Closet.
copyright © Sandy Wenzel Schaumleffel
Also by Yuko Taniguchi:
