Undeniable Spirit
by
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"Sayuri-chan. Sayuri…" Her voice floats into my troubled and hazy mind, causing me to lift my head from my arms. I found myself huddled in a corner. My mother crouched in front of me, holding a dirtied plastic cup, pitiful despite its size, of water to my face. Giving her a grateful look I took it, raising the cup to my lips to take a much needed drink, then spat out the liquid. The water tasted of oil, rot, and saliva, making me scrunch my face. "You must drink it. It's good water…" My mother's admonish trailed off, her tone fatigued. We both knew this wasn't the time for arguing over how water tasted. "Not good water… No." I shook my head, my throat dry and parched. Trying to burrow into myself, to disappear out of this wretched place, never worked. This was here and now. Three days had passed after the atomic bomb dropped from the U.S. air forces on Nagasaki, the place where I lived. My mother and I were the only survivors of our family after the explosion. We both knew if we didn't find enough food or water we would meet the same fate as the rest of our village. It's hard to survive in a catastrophe. Images of disaster similar to the ones I saw in the textbooks in school haunted me and darkened my heart. They helped me understand how people felt in those situations in the agony and pain, faces twisted, thoughts all the same. My eyes watered, but I refused to cry. Being strong in more ways than one shows true spirit, my mother once said.
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About the Book
Sayuri's whole life changes when she survives the atomic bombing of Nagasaki by the U.S Air Force during World War Two. With her family dead she has to learn to live in a terribly cruel world. However, things take a drastic turn when Sayuri meets another person like her. His name is Akio and the two unlikely teenagers band together to try and make a new life for themselves. Sayuri soon has a dilemma as she has to trudge through a world plagued with fear, wariness, and evil in the form of a group of slave-making people called the Jaakuna. She must harness the power inside her to get through the world she has started to understand. Sayuri must show she has the undeniable spirit to survive what life throws at her.
About the Author
Michelle is a seventeen year old high school student living in Staten Island, New York. She will attend college in the fall with a major in Professional Writing. Michelle Gillen was inspired by the recent Tsunami that struck Japan three years ago to write her novel, Undeniable Spirit. She feels Asian-Americans, preferably Japanese-Americans will connect with her novel and relate to it due to the historical content in it. Michelle has a strong affinity and love for Japanese culture and she sympathized for the Japanese people when the Tsunami struck Japan, destroying the lives of hundreds of people. Michelle feels readers will be interested in her because she is an adolescent who has written a novel targeted for other adolescents. She believes people will be interested in her voice as a writer because she has a determination to be published and get her book out there. Even if Michelle is learning the ropes of becoming a published writer she feels she will succeed.