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Résumé :
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Tokyo, 1938. Four amateur musicians passionate about Western classical music meet regularly at the Cultural Center to rehearse. Around the Japanese Yu, an English teacher, three Chinese students, Yanfen, Cheng and Kang, who have remained in Japan, despite the war into which the Empire's expansionist policy is plunging Asia. One day, the rehearsal is brutally interrupted by the irruption of soldiers. Yu's violin is broken by a soldier, the Sino-Japanese quartet is taken on board, suspected of plotting against the country. Hidden in a cupboard, Rei, Yu's eleven-year-old son, witnessed the scene. He will never see his father again... The child escapes the violence of the soldiers thanks to Lieutenant Kurokami who, far from denouncing him when he discovers him in his hiding place, entrusts him with the destroyed violin. This event constitutes for Rei the first wound which will mark all his life... In this delicately charming novel, Akira Mizubayashi explores the question of memory, uprooting and impossible mourning. We find there the themes dear to the author of A language from elsewhere: literature and music, two forms of art which, deepening over time until they become the very matter of life, defy death
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