Wayne P. Lammers, Japanese-English Translator
Taken Captive
A Japanese POW's Story
by Shohei Ooka.
Wiley, 1996. ISBN 0-471-14285-9 (hardcover).
"Shortly after New Year's Day, 1944, a thirty-five-year-old literary critic named Shohei Ooka was called to serve in the Japanese Imperial Army. His summons was typically terse and admitted no appeal. Upon reporting to a regimental depot in Tokyo, he was given rudimentary training and shipped off with a newly formed infantry battalion to join the garrison troops on the Japanese-occupied island of Mindoro, then nervously awaiting the expected American landing in the Philippines. There were few more improbable soldiers..."
The author of this literary POW journal will be familiar to many for his novel Fires on the Plain, also set in the Philippines near the end of World War II.
A Japanese POW's Story
by Shohei Ooka.
Wiley, 1996. ISBN 0-471-14285-9 (hardcover).
"Shortly after New Year's Day, 1944, a thirty-five-year-old literary critic named Shohei Ooka was called to serve in the Japanese Imperial Army. His summons was typically terse and admitted no appeal. Upon reporting to a regimental depot in Tokyo, he was given rudimentary training and shipped off with a newly formed infantry battalion to join the garrison troops on the Japanese-occupied island of Mindoro, then nervously awaiting the expected American landing in the Philippines. There were few more improbable soldiers..."
The author of this literary POW journal will be familiar to many for his novel Fires on the Plain, also set in the Philippines near the end of World War II.
Reviews
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The New York Times Book Review
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"Ooka . . . takes the reader along the path of a prisoner of war, from fear of disgrace at home to relief [at the elated welcome they received]. Wayne P. Lammers has provided a seamless translation."
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The Asahi Evening News
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"Translated with masterful elegance. . . . The reader who remembers [Ooka's] Fires on the Plain as a novel of 'manic intensity' . . . may be surprised by the detached, contemplative, and often lighthearted tone, as well as the dry wit of Taken Captive."
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Sasuga News and Reviews
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"Ooka Shohei . . . narrates his experience as a prisoner of war with disoncerting wit, brilliant intellectual prowess, and a deep introspection. Wayne Lammers' translation of this work is a marvel of empathy. . . . He thoroughly conveys the author's fluid pace and style."
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Mangajin
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"Taken Captive is at once an intensely personal revelation as well as a powerful critique of Japanese militarism. . . . [It] reads like a chronicle of death and rebirth. The chronicle reproduces the slow rhythms of his idle days: the sights, sounds, tastes of POW camp life; the long stretches of time spent in contemplation and observation of minutiae. [It] is well served by the elegant, measured English translation, which nicely evokes the sepia tones and slightly old-world, careful prose of the original."
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