Pamela Pan, Ph.D., is a professor of English and an author of fiction and non-fiction.
Book in progress: EIGHT-SIDED MOUNTAIN is a historical fiction based on my Grandma’s life during the Japanese invasion of China in WWII.
Seventeen-year-old Mei’s arranged marriage seems like a blessing—until she meets her bridegroom. It is 1937, in Zhejiang Province, China. On their wedding night, her husband Chang announces he is enlisting in the army to fight the Japanese invaders. Raised to be a lady, Mei learns to stand on her once-bound feet and become the backbone of the family.
When Chang is wounded in battle, Mei travels to nurse him back from the brink of death. Japanese bombs fall on her village. Afterward, soldiers march in to loot all, kill all, and burn all. Filled with terror, she leads her children and in-laws into a hidden cave in the Eight-sided Mountain near her village.
She prays the worst is over. But the enemy drops disease-ridden bacteria bombs. Her daughter develops plague symptoms, and Mei faces an impossible decision. Caring for her toddler would expose her, the whole family, and the entire village to the potential plague. But abandoning her child would leave her haunted with regret and self-hatred for the rest of her life, even if she survives the war.