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不毛之地
从日本到美国，从战机采购、船运之争、汽车业风暴，乃至韩国的地铁建设、中东原油开采，这是一场以全世界为舞台的跨国贸易战，也是一场痛快淋漓的人性角力！
小说描写了彷徨于两处“不毛之地”——西伯利亚和中东的一个日本人的奋斗历程。
曾任日本大本营参谋的原陆军中佐壹岐正，二战结束前赴伪满洲处理停战事宜时，被苏军俘虏扣押十一年，在天寒地冻的西伯利亚做苦役。回到日本后近畿商事的社长大门一三看重壹岐正的这段经历，邀请他到公司工作。围绕总预算超一万亿日元的日本防卫厅主力战机选定，几家大商社展开了血腥厮杀。商战的背后有着种种见不得人的明争暗斗——政界与防卫厅的利害关系错综复杂，壹岐正则在“黑色的商战”中展示了杰出的才能，获得了胜利，当然也付出巨大的代价。
他抓住中东战争期间的商机，为公司带来巨大利益，也因业绩突出升任专务。他押赌注盘定了伊朗的一个矿区，并顶住政界、官界逆风，终于在采掘权的竞标中中标。然而，灼热大地却丝毫没有喷油的征兆……
小说描写了彷徨于两处“不毛之地”——西伯利亚和中东的一个日本人的奋斗历程。
曾任日本大本营参谋的原陆军中佐壹岐正，二战结束前赴伪满洲处理停战事宜时，被苏军俘虏扣押十一年，在天寒地冻的西伯利亚做苦役。回到日本后近畿商事的社长大门一三看重壹岐正的这段经历，邀请他到公司工作。围绕总预算超一万亿日元的日本防卫厅主力战机选定，几家大商社展开了血腥厮杀。商战的背后有着种种见不得人的明争暗斗——政界与防卫厅的利害关系错综复杂，壹岐正则在“黑色的商战”中展示了杰出的才能，获得了胜利，当然也付出巨大的代价。
他抓住中东战争期间的商机，为公司带来巨大利益，也因业绩突出升任专务。他押赌注盘定了伊朗的一个矿区，并顶住政界、官界逆风，终于在采掘权的竞标中中标。然而，灼热大地却丝毫没有喷油的征兆……
1130 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 1976
About the author
Toyoko Yamasaki
131 books22 followersToyoko Yamasaki (山崎 豊子, real name Sugimoto Toyoko; 3 November 1924 – 29 September 2013) was a Japanese novelist.
A native of Osaka, Yamasaki worked as a journalist for the Mainichi Shimbun from 1945 to 1959 after graduating from Kyoto Women's University in Japanese literature. She published her first story, Noren (1957), a story of a kelp trader, based on the experiences of her family's business. The following year, she won the Naoki Prize for her second novel Hana Noren, the story about the founder of an entertainment group. A major influence on her writings of that period was Yasushi Inoue, who was deputy head of the Mainichi Shimbun's cultural news desk.
Yamasaki wrote some stories based on actual events. For example, Futatsu no Sokoku is derived from the biography of a Japanese American David Akira Itami, and Shizumanu Taiyō is based on the Japan Airlines Flight 123 accident. Several works of hers were featured in films and television dramas.
A native of Osaka, Yamasaki worked as a journalist for the Mainichi Shimbun from 1945 to 1959 after graduating from Kyoto Women's University in Japanese literature. She published her first story, Noren (1957), a story of a kelp trader, based on the experiences of her family's business. The following year, she won the Naoki Prize for her second novel Hana Noren, the story about the founder of an entertainment group. A major influence on her writings of that period was Yasushi Inoue, who was deputy head of the Mainichi Shimbun's cultural news desk.
Yamasaki wrote some stories based on actual events. For example, Futatsu no Sokoku is derived from the biography of a Japanese American David Akira Itami, and Shizumanu Taiyō is based on the Japan Airlines Flight 123 accident. Several works of hers were featured in films and television dramas.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
December 7, 2020
A book of two halves - the first half concerns the 11 years spent in various Siberian prison camps after the end of World War 2 by Iki, a senior officer in the Japanese army. The second half concerns his life after repatriation, when he is recruited by a trading company and becomes involved in the shadowy dealing going on between big business and the Japanese government in regard to the purchase of American military planes.
This is by no means great literature - the prose is often clichéd and is of the quality you would expect from 'bestselling' authors like Dan Brown, while most of the characters have all the dimensions of a cardboard cut-out. However, we do come to care for the lead character, and the story is a strong one, which takes us from Japan's defeat in WW2 to its resurgence as a major economic power through the eyes of one individual. The plight of Japanese prisoners-of-war has seldom been written about and the author interviewed 22 survivors of Siberian camps, so the research is good and the details of this part of the story ring true.
Although I believe that Yamasaki is not considered a right-wing author, I was surprised to find her portrayal of the Japanese military so one-sided - almost as if they were innocent victims and had every right to be in China! A mixed bag to say the least, then, but the book does have some value.
This is by no means great literature - the prose is often clichéd and is of the quality you would expect from 'bestselling' authors like Dan Brown, while most of the characters have all the dimensions of a cardboard cut-out. However, we do come to care for the lead character, and the story is a strong one, which takes us from Japan's defeat in WW2 to its resurgence as a major economic power through the eyes of one individual. The plight of Japanese prisoners-of-war has seldom been written about and the author interviewed 22 survivors of Siberian camps, so the research is good and the details of this part of the story ring true.
Although I believe that Yamasaki is not considered a right-wing author, I was surprised to find her portrayal of the Japanese military so one-sided - almost as if they were innocent victims and had every right to be in China! A mixed bag to say the least, then, but the book does have some value.
December 3, 2025
What a magnificent book. At least as good as I thought when I first read it -- oh 20 years ago?
A Japanese staff officer is imprisoned by the USSR after the end of WW2 and survives Siberia. He returns to a Japan which is trying to make its way in the world and in which he has to meet his family de novo, and recover his orientation and health.
Then he is hired to report directly to the head of an up-and-coming trading concern. As the book ends he has synthesised a position between his previous military planning role and the need for Japan to compete economically.
This book is the first of a series of 4. What a shame that none of the other seem to be available in one of my languages!
A Japanese staff officer is imprisoned by the USSR after the end of WW2 and survives Siberia. He returns to a Japan which is trying to make its way in the world and in which he has to meet his family de novo, and recover his orientation and health.
Then he is hired to report directly to the head of an up-and-coming trading concern. As the book ends he has synthesised a position between his previous military planning role and the need for Japan to compete economically.
This book is the first of a series of 4. What a shame that none of the other seem to be available in one of my languages!
April 15, 2015
A very interesting novel, concerning a ww2 Japanese army officer who survives eleven years of Soviet captivity before returning to Japan. Back in Japan, with only a few of his military colleagues, he enters business at the invitation of a dynamic businessman. The story is about personal readjustment across three different societies.
The sequences in the Manchurian and Siberian camps are very unusual, particularly the impact of Soviet propaganda on some of the Japanese. The Soviets apparently wished to indoctrinate them for some time, then send them back to their homes as Communist sympathisers.
The transition of the defeated officer to successful executive is also interesting, and would seem a metaphor for post-war Japanese society.
However, there was an undertone of militarism in the book. When a Russian prostitute in Siberian captivity asks if the hero is a Japanese samurai, that seemed unlikely. Also when Chinese and Korean prisoners approach the Japanese officers to say how much they respect them as Asians, that seems perhaps propagandistic. It's the apparent militarism which stops this outstanding novel getting the full five stars. The ending where the hero makes a trip to Pearl Harbour while on business in the USA, is almost a bit sinister.
It was not grossly so though, and the treatment of civilian Japanese in Manchuria was covered. On a prison train they meet a radio technician accused of spying; he has less support than the interned soldiers. The difficulty of Japanese women deported back from Manchuria is mentioned; the possibilty of Soviet army rape makes it a problem to marry. The similarity and also contrast between a Japanese officer who had spent post-war years in a Buddhist monastery, and those who had been in Soviet camps, is very subtly conveyed. Even in English translation excellent writing.
The sequences in the Manchurian and Siberian camps are very unusual, particularly the impact of Soviet propaganda on some of the Japanese. The Soviets apparently wished to indoctrinate them for some time, then send them back to their homes as Communist sympathisers.
The transition of the defeated officer to successful executive is also interesting, and would seem a metaphor for post-war Japanese society.
However, there was an undertone of militarism in the book. When a Russian prostitute in Siberian captivity asks if the hero is a Japanese samurai, that seemed unlikely. Also when Chinese and Korean prisoners approach the Japanese officers to say how much they respect them as Asians, that seems perhaps propagandistic. It's the apparent militarism which stops this outstanding novel getting the full five stars. The ending where the hero makes a trip to Pearl Harbour while on business in the USA, is almost a bit sinister.
It was not grossly so though, and the treatment of civilian Japanese in Manchuria was covered. On a prison train they meet a radio technician accused of spying; he has less support than the interned soldiers. The difficulty of Japanese women deported back from Manchuria is mentioned; the possibilty of Soviet army rape makes it a problem to marry. The similarity and also contrast between a Japanese officer who had spent post-war years in a Buddhist monastery, and those who had been in Soviet camps, is very subtly conveyed. Even in English translation excellent writing.
June 22, 2016
Yamasaki's 'Barren Zone' begins at a frantic, frenzied pace: Japan has just announced its surrender in WWII but the leaders of the Kwantung Army in Manchuria refuse to submit. Staff officer Iki is sent to Manchuoko to facilitate the disarmament and ends up a POW in Siberia. For 11 years. And Yamasaki lets you feel the hardships, the tremendous suffering, the inhuman endurance required to emerge alive. It's riveting and I could barely put it down. But then Iki is eventually sent back to Japan and repatriated. He embarks on a new career path as a businessman in a large trading firm. The company president has plans for him, but puts him to work in the textile department where he learns the ropes trading synthetic futures. If this sounds boring, IT IS. The second half of the book goes into such detail about this mundane industry, it's insane. I can't fathom how anyone could possibly find it interesting, especially following such a tremendous first half. And it only slightly picks up the pace shortly before the end, with a company-sponsored sojourn to America. By the time you're bogged down in the boring, it's too late to give up on the book. But the ending doesn't provide much of a reward. I can't recommend the book's first ~200 pages strongly enough, but Yamasaki's choice of direction is supremely puzzling.
July 28, 2015
As an american living in japan i am always interested in reading Japanese authors i never heard of. I discovered Yamasaki on a news report one night on NHK tv . I picked this book up and found it quite fascinating, a story that captures Japan at its worst defeat at the end of the second world war and its rather quickly rising prospects as it enters modern society that will eventually one day catapult it in to the 2nd largest economy in the world. the story begins in Manchuria following the misfortunes of a Japanese officer ( IKI) who helped plan the war and is now a defeated and captured prisoner of the soviet union in Siberia . We witness his descent and his return to a nation now thoroughly different and his struggles to fit in with it . Yamasaki captures vividly the changes that take place in the years from 1945 to 1959 as Japan emerges from the war ravaged but quickly begins its economic recovery . We follow IKI as he barely survives a soviet POW camp in Siberia , his return home to his wife and children and his struggles in a changing new world , the part he is destined to play in stand the changes for Japan as well as for him personally . I will certainly check out some more of this authors work
February 28, 2014
Powerful stories of Japanese POWs caught on the Chinese Russian border at the close of WWII are told in the form of a fictitious character's experience. Yamasaki interviewed several Japanese army survivors of USSR prison camps that were eventually repatriated to Japan after years of imprisonment. Further evidence that pain from torture cuts across all cultures and peoples, and that we are all part of the human family.
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October 22, 2010Right after Reading David Mitchell's latest, I wanted something Japanese, and that's what was around. A novel about Japanese POW experiences in Soviet captivity after WWII. Not a great novel so far, but very interesting subject matter with enough context to be useful to a novice reader of history. George Kennan just made an appearance. Today is August 9.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews