Planeta 2008

Fernando Lara Novel Award 2008.

A novel full of exoticism, adventure, emotions, and intertwined loves set during World War II.

It is 1943, and the Japanese army, which fully controls the city of Shanghai, establishes the only Jewish ghetto in the world that is not under Nazi control. Leon and Norah Blumenthal, a Jewish couple who arrived in Shanghai in 1939 when the city was still a free port and retained all its fascination, are confined to this “area designated for stateless persons.”

However, all is not lost, as they have the help of the Spanish consul in Shanghai, Dr. Martín Niboli. He must confront Colonel Fukuda, the head of the Japanese secret police. To succeed, he relies on Nube Perfumada, a former sexual slave of the Japanese army, who becomes the key to this moving and thrilling novel.