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The Samurai's Garden
Gail Tsukiyama, 1994
224 pp.

In Brief
On the eve of the Second World War, a young Chinese man is sent to his family's summer home in Japan to recover from tuberculosis. He will rest, swim in the salubrious sea, and paint in the brilliant shoreside light. It will be quiet and solitary. But he meets four local residents - a lovely young Japanese girl and three older people. What then ensues is a tale that readers will find at once classical yet utterly unique. Young Stephen has his own adventure, but it is the unfolding story of Matsu, Sachi, and Kenzo that seizes your attention and will stay with you forever. Tsukiyama, with lines as clean, simple, telling, and dazzling as the best of Oriental art, has created an exquisite little masterpiece. (From the publisher.)

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About the Author

• Birth—?
• Where—San Francisco, California, USA
• Education—B.A., M.A., San Francisco State University
• Awards—Academy of American Poets Award
• Currently—San Francisco, California


Gail Tsukiyama is the author of the best-selling novels The Language of Threads, Women of the Silk, The Samurai's Garden and Night of Many Dreams. Born to a Chinese mother and a Japanese father, she grew up in San Francisco and now lives in El Cerrito, California. She earned her bachelor's and master's degrees in English with a concentration in Creative Writing at San Francisco State University. With an understanding of her heritage, Tsukiyama explores the sights, sounds and feelings of China and Japan in her novels.

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Critics Say. . .
As the title suggests in this charming book, gardens are central to the thematic concerns. They require loving devotion and constant nurturing, the very qualities that heal the human body and soul and provide respite from the world's ills. In this book those ills .... Read more.
A LitLovers LitPick - Nov. '06


Seventeen-year-old Stephen leaves his home in Hong Kong just as the Japanese are poised to invade China. He is sent to Tarumi, a small village in Japan, to recuperate from tuberculosis. His developing friendship with three adults and a young woman his own age brings him to the beginnings of wisdom about love, honor, and loss. Given the potentially interesting subplot (the story of a love triangle doomed by the outbreak of leprosy in the village) and the fascinating period in which the book is set, this second novel by the author of Women of the Silk (St. Martin's, 1991) has the potential to be a winner. Unfortunately, it is sunk by a flat, dull prose style, one-dimensional characters who fail to engage the reader's interest, and the author's tendency to tell rather than show. Libraries with comprehensive fiction collections might consider, but others can pass.-Nancy Pearl, Washington Ctr. for the Book, Seattle.
Library Journal

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Book Club Discussion Questions
The daughter of a Chinese mother and a Japanese father, Tsukiyama uses the Japanese invasion of China during the late 1930s as a somber backdrop for her unusual story about a 20-year-old Chinese painter named Stephen who is sent to his family's summer home in a Japanese coastal village to recover from a bout with tuberculosis. Here he is cared for by Matsu, a reticent housekeeper and a master gardener. Over the course of a remarkable year, Stephen learns Matsu's secret and gains not only physical strength, but also profound spiritual insight. Matsu is a samurai of the soul, a man devoted to doing good and finding beauty in a cruel and arbitrary world, and Stephen is a noble student, learning to appreciate Matsu's generous and nurturing way of life and to love Matsu's soulmate, gentle Sachi, a woman afflicted with leprosy.

1. The title of the novel obviously alludes to Matsu's garden, but to whom else could the title refer as a "Samurai"? Why?

2. The garden acts as a center or core of the novel. All three central characters (Stephen, Matsu, and Sachi) find some sense of comfort in tending the garden. What are some of the metaphors for the garden and how are they worked out in the novel?

3. Loneliness, solitude, and isolation are all themes that permeate the novel throughout. How do the three central characters' approaches to these feelings vary, resemble each other, and evolve?

4. It appears as though Stephen and Sachi are somehow juxtaposed. How is this connection represented and developed?

5. How is the politically turbulent time at which The Samurai's Garden takes place approached in the novel? Is it a strongly political novel or does the world of Tamuri somehow defy and avoid the political turmoil of the era?

6. How is Stephen and Keiko's relationship represented? Examine it in relation to the courtships of the past--Kenzo and Sachi, as well as Matsu and Sachi.

As the novel progresses, Stephen stops longing to return to his home and in fact dreads having to leave Tamuri. What provokes this change of heart? Also, how does this sentiment affect the ending of the novel?
(Questions issued by publisher.)