How in Heaven's Name: A Novel of the Second World War - Tapa dura

How in Heaven's Name is a microcosm of the uprooting and dislocation that have characterized much of modern Korean and East Asian history. It is based on the true story of several Korean youths who in the late 1930s were lured into the Japanese Imperial Army either through promises by the Japanese colonial overlords of a government clerkship upon discharge or by means of threats to transplant their entire families to colonial outposts in Manchuria.

Bruce Fulton is Young-Bin Min Chair in Korean Literature and Literary Translation, Department of Asian Studies, University of British Columbia.