Kaori, Yuki and Shigeko are indigenous Ryukyuan girls on the edge of womanhood who find themselves trapped in a fictionalized Battle of Okinawa. They survive by connecting to their intuition, shiisaa guardians specific to Okinawa, and each other. Based on true events, shamanistic magic may be what brings them together, but the girls must ultimately find the power within themselves. Their sisterhood is what defies and defeats those that threaten them.
Trigger warning: Sexual violence is an essential part of the plot to represent the real life situation women in Okinawa face to this day, but there are no graphic depictions of the act in this story. It remains only a threat to the characters.
Assessment:
Plot/Idea: Inujini is a hard-hitting story drawn from historical events and focused on the lives of young indigenous women deeply impacted by violence and war.
Prose: The author's prose is both exacting and beautifully descriptive, skillfully alternating between parallel stories. Smith is a masterful storyteller whose work touches on themes of identity, nationalism, and generational trauma.
Originality: Inujini offers an inventive and compelling retelling of a tragic historical event well-known in Japan but unknown widely in the West. The author doesn't shy from describing atrocities, potentially opening readers' eyes to Japanese history.
Character/Execution: Via three points of view–each distinct and devastating–Smith creates a memorable, character-driven novel that utilizes its historical circumstances to optimal impact.
Date Submitted: June 27, 2024
Angela Yuriko Smith has written a moving story, one even more pertinent in today’s world, of a people under attack. Nobody has the right to wipe out the existence of a people or culture. But mankind, being what it is, will always seek to impose its own conformity on others. Until that imposition stops, the world will never know true peace. I hope this story of the Ryukyuan will mark the beginning of a greater awareness of these people and their suffering, not just at the hands of the Japanese, but also at the hands of the US which leases the islands. There are too many crimes committed against the islanders even today.
Inujini is an important book, and a powerful condemnation of the treatment of a people. Read it and weep for those who were destroyed in the war, then read it and weep for their descendants destroyed during peace time.
