Fires on the Plain | Shohei Ooka, Ivan Morris

The author's experience as a prisoner captured by American forces during WWII figures prominently in this haunting novel about the ultimate degradation of a man by war. Set in Leyte, where the Japanese army is disintegrating under the hammering blows of American forces, the story focuses on the disintegration of one man, Private Tamura. One by one, each of his ties to society is destroyed, until Tamura, a sensitive and intelligent man, becomes an outcast. Yet it is the novel's uplifting vision during a time of ultimate horror that has made it one of Japan's greatest novels.