Bibliograph

Heart of a samurai, based on the true story of Nakahama Manjiro, Margi Preus

Type

Label

Heart of a samurai, based on the true story of Nakahama Manjiro, Margi Preus

Language

eng

Index

no index present

Literary Form

fiction

Main title

Heart of a samurai

Medium

electronic resource

Nature of contents

dictionaries

Responsibility statement

Margi Preus

Sub title

based on the true story of Nakahama Manjiro

Summary

In 1841 a Japanese fishing vessel sinks. Its crew is forced to swim to a small, unknown island, where they are rescued by a passing American ship. Japan's borders remain closed to all Western nations, so the crew sets off to America, learning English on the way. Manjiro, a 14-year-old boy, is curious and eager to learn everything he can about this new culture. Eventually the captain adopts Manjiro and takes him to his home in New England. The boy lives there for some time and then heads to San Francisco to pan for gold. After many years, he makes it back to Japan, only to be imprisoned as an outsider. With his hard-won knowledge of the West, Manjiro is in a unique position to persuade the emperor to ease open the boundaries around Japan; he may even achieve his unlikely dream of becoming a samurai

Target audience

juvenile

Classification