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Angelico Hall, Dominican University
Tickets: $35 (Includes Signed Book)

In Conversation with Don George

In 1939, as Poland falls under the shadow of the Nazis, young Alma Belasco’s parents send her away to live with her aunt and uncle in their opulent mansion in San Francisco. There she encounters Ichimei Fukuda, the quiet and gentle son of the family’s Japanese gardener. Unnoticed by those around them, a tender love affair begins to blossom, but the two are cruelly separated by the consequences of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Ichimei and his family, like thousands of other Japanese Americans, are declared enemies and forcibly relocated to internment camps run by the United States government. Throughout their lifetimes, Alma and Ichimei reunite again and again, but theirs is a love that they are forever forced to hide from the world. Irina Bazili, a care worker struggling to come to terms with her own troubled past, meets the elderly Alma and her grandson, Seth, at San Francisco’s charmingly eccentric Lark House nursing home. As Irina and Seth forge a friendship, they become intrigued by mysterious gifts and letters sent to Alma, eventually learning about Ichimei and this extraordinary secret passion. Sweeping through time and spanning generations and continents, The Japanese Lover explores questions of identity, abandonment, redemption, and the impact of fate on our lives. 

Isabelle Allende was born in Peru, raised in Chile and now lives in California. She is the author of a number of bestselling and critically acclaimed books, including The House of the Spirits, Daughter of Fortune, Paula, and My Invented Country. Her books have been translated into more than thirty-five languages and have sold more than 65 million copies worldwide.