PHANTOM PARADISE
Escape from Manchuria
In Phantom Paradise, I retrace the odyssey from the ruins of war through the years of rebuilding in Japan and beyond. I discovered how my mother’s strength and her fierce determination to survive became the ground on which I built my own future — a future I could not yet see but imagined would be better.
This memoir shines light on Manchuria’s overlooked place in history while telling the story of a family trapped by war and politics. There are lessons here for all of us in today’s tempestuous and chaotic times.
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Early Reviews
“Not since the wildly popular bestseller Pachinko have we had a multi-generational story as revelatory and hairy-raising as the one we read in Phantom Paradise. Here, all too vividly, we experience the fear, displacement, hunger, and human ravages of an epic war novel. Except that Kay Enokido’s story is all too true. Her memoir turns a sharp lens on the little understood occupation of Manchuria and the heart-stopping experiences of a Japanese family as the Empire collapses and they flee through the embers of a savage war.”
-MARIE ARANA, author of the prize-winning memoir American Chica and inaugural Literary Director of the Library of Congress
“From the very first sentence, Kay Enokido’s memoir draws you into the remarkable, untold story of a country that no longer exists and a family that endures through war and exile. Her crisp prose weaves her mother’s writing with her own voice to deliver an intimate chronicle of flight, memory, and resilience. I could not put down.”
-KIM GHATTAS, author of New York Times notable book Black Wave.
“Long since I encountered such a moving, thrilling and readable book. Finished in a few hours non-stop. Such a touching and candid memoir of a repatriate family from Manchuria as well as of a girl of that family starting from scratch to become a top hotelier in DC. You are lucky if you have not read it yet. You still have the joy of reading this fascinating book.”
-ICHIRO FUJISAKI, Former Ambassador of Japan to the United States.
“Phantom Paradise is a powerful narrative of survival and transformation and a valuable contribution to our understanding of East Asia’s twentieth-century history. Enokido’s account of her family’s perilous flight from Manchuria in 1945 and her own extraordinary journey from refugee child to successful businesswoman in America offers an unusually personal and engaging perspective on displacement and survival.”
-GERALD L. CURTIS, Burgess Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Columbia University
“A fascinating account of a period and people often overlooked in Western histories of the 20th century. Kay Enokido draws on her mother’s vivid recollections of raising a young family in Japan’s Manchurian colony as war’s shadow descends. She paints a poignant portrait of a lost empire’s broken promises and the consequences for one family. The perspective Enokido brings, after a lifetime of business and personal successes anchored in that turbulent time, is all the more striking.”
-MARCUS BRAUCHLI, The Washington Post & The Wall Street Journal