Japanese colonialism is infamous for its brutalization of women, abducted and forced into sex slavery. Less known is women’s role in fighting against the Japanese Empire, brilliantly brought to life in two recent novels.

In Capitalists Must Starve — a novel by Park Seolyeon, translated from Korean by Anton Hur — a labor activist climbs to the rooftop of a rubber factory in Pyongyang, Korea, using a makeshift rope fashioned out of twisted Japanese cotton, staging a solo protest against unfair wages under Japanese colonial rule. In Emma Pei Yin’s fictional debut When Sleeping Women Wake, a young rebel leader fires shot after shot at pursuing Japanese soldiers from behind wooden barrels of moldy fish at a Hong Kong pier, buying time for civilians to escape onto rescue boats that will spirit

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