Seeing the whole picture

[Photo provided to China Daily]

50 Years of Silence: The Extraordinary Memoir of a War Rape Survivor

The book is a memoir by Dutch-Australian Jan Ruff O'Herne, who was forced into sexual slavery by Japanese troops during World War II.

O'Herne, 92, was born in Dutch East Indies, then a Southeast Asian colony, and was kept as a "comfort woman" by the Japanese military in 1944.

After the war had ended, O'Herne was afraid of bringing social discomfort to her family and didn't talk about her trauma for nearly 50 years. But she broke her silence in 1992, seeking a formal apology from Tokyo.

Her memoir was first published in Australia in 1994. A Chinese version was published in June.