The Samurai’s Garden

Much of The Samurai’s Garden, Gail Tsukiyama’s 1994 novel about a Chinese teenager with tuberculosis convalescing in the small Japanese beach town of Tarumi, takes place in a garden. As the book moves through a year’s worth of seasons, narrator Stephen bonds with his family’s gardener Matsu, discovering the “world of secrets” Matsu has created with his backyard silk trees and chrysanthemum flowers. And while chaos reigns outside of Tarumi, as Stephen’s…

Tarumi, the Japanese coastal town that acts as the setting for The Samurai’s Garden, is filled with beauty. Waves crash against white sand beaches, flowers thrive in bamboo-gated gardens, and attractive young visitor Stephen can’t help but notice how pretty his new friend Keiko is. But when Stephen befriends Sachi, a woman who lives in the nearby leper colony of Yamaguchi, Sachi’s experience makes Stephen question the idea of beauty as a…

The Samurai’s Garden, Gail Tsukiyama’s 1994 novel about a Chinese teenager (Stephen) and his family’s gardener (Matsu), is set mostly in the placid beach town of Tarumi, Japan. But while Stephen builds deep new friendships with Matsu and the other Japanese residents of Tarumi, Japan’s Imperial Army is simultaneously invading China, brutally bombing and pillaging cities on its path to conquer the whole country. Though Stephen initially does his best…

When Stephen, the narrator of The Samurai’s Garden, arrives in Tarumi, he is struck that so many of the small town’s residents seem to live isolated lives. In particular, Stephen wonders about his family’s gardener Matsu, an unmarried older man who has never left this beachside village. But while Stephen eventually comes to know that Matsu does have an extensive social network in Tarumi (including his old friend Kenzo and his beloved…