Book Talk - The Martyr and the Red Kimono
Book Talk - The Martyr and the Red Kimono
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On Monday 20th April, acclaimed author Naoko Abe will give a talk on her book The Martyr and the Red Kimono: A Fearless Priest's Sacrifice and a New Generation of Hope in Japan in St Wilfrid's Hall at the London Oratory (Brompton Road, SW7 2RP).
The Martyr and the Red Kimono tells the remarkable true story of Saint Maximilian Kolbe and the two men in war-torn Japan whose lives he changed forever. On 14th August 1941, a Polish priest named Maximilian Maria Kolbe was murdered in Auschwitz. Fiercely intelligent and driven, he founded the Catholic movement Militia Immaculatae in Europe, and spent six years in Nagasaki, Japan, in the 1930s. Kolbe built the largest Catholic friary in the world in Poland and ran Poland's largest publishing operation. He gave sanctuary to fleeing refugees during the war, drawing the wrath of the Nazis. His death was no less remarkable: he volunteered to die, saving the life of a fellow prisoner.
This act profoundly transformed the lives of two Japanese men. Tōmei Ozaki was just seventeen when the US dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, destroying his home and his family. Masatoshi Asari worked on a farm in Hokkaido during the war and was haunted by Japan’s inhumane treatment of prisoners of war in a nearby camp. Both men drew inspiration from Kolbe's sacrifice, dedicating their lives to humanity and justice. Ozaki followed in Kolbe’s footsteps and became a friar. Asari sent cherry trees to the world as peace offerings. Naoko Abe’s book is a deeply moving and inspirational story of resistance, sacrifice, guilt and atonement.
Naoko Abe is a London-based Japanese author and journalist who has lived in the UK with her British husband since 2001. Her first English-language book, ‘Cherry’ Ingram, The Englishman Who Saved Japan’s Blossoms, was published in 2019 to critical acclaim. The book won several awards in Japan and in the UK, and has been translated into 8 languages. Her second English book The Martyr and the Red Kimono was published in 2024 in English and Dutch and in Japan last year. Last summer. Naoko was invited to the Nobel Peace Prize committee in Oslo to talk about the book with its chairman, Jørgen Watne Frydnes.
For more information on the the author and the book, please see https://naokoabe.com/.
The evening will include a talk by the author, the opportunity for questions and a book signing. Doors open at 6.30pm; talk starting at 7.00pm. A drinks' reception will follow until about 9.00pm.
Please register if you intend to come. If you are able to make a donation to help us cover our catering costs, we would be most grateful. We look forward to seeing you at the book launch.