{
    "id": 402189,
    "slug": "samurais-garden-the-gail-tsukiyama",
    "nstc": null,
    "title": "The Samurai's Garden",
    "subtitle": null,
    "collection_title": null,
    "collection_part_number": null,
    "annotation": null,
    "description": "<p>The daughter of a Chinese mother and a Japanese father, Gail Tsukiyama's The Samurai's Garden uses the Japanese invasion of China during the late 1930s as a somber backdrop for this extraordinary story. A 20-year-old Chinese painter named Stephen 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.</p>",
    "imprint": null,
    "language_code": "eng",
    "original_language_code": null,
    "page_count": 211,
    "duration_seconds": null,
    "publication_date_first": "2001-01-01",
    "publication_date_latest": "2021-04-29",
    "cover_url": null,
    "editions": [],
    "ratings_count": 0,
    "read_count": 0,
    "review_count": 0,
    "favorite_count": 0,
    "reading_status_read_count": 0,
    "reading_status_reading_count": 0,
    "reading_status_want_to_read_count": 0,
    "rating_average": null,
    "ratings_distribution": {
        "1": 0,
        "2": 0,
        "3": 0,
        "4": 0,
        "5": 0
    },
    "created_at": "2025-09-19T13:40:19+00:00",
    "updated_at": "2025-10-30T00:33:19+00:00",
    "publisher": {
        "id": 4196,
        "slug": "st-martins-press",
        "name": "St Martin's Press",
        "created_at": "2025-09-19T13:08:55+00:00",
        "updated_at": "2025-09-19T15:10:07+00:00"
    },
    "contributors": [
        {
            "id": 246637,
            "slug": "gail-tsukiyama-2",
            "key_names": "Tsukiyama",
            "names_before_key": "Gail",
            "prefix_to_key": null,
            "contributor_role": "A01",
            "readable_contributor_role": "Author"
        }
    ],
    "genres": [],
    "subjects": []
}