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A mother´s love. A daughter´s courage. A secret that will tear them apart. Longlisted for the 2016 Baileys Women´s Prize for Fiction.

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LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILEYS WOMEN´S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2016
A BBC RADIO 2 BOOK CLUB PICK

´Memoirs of a Geisha meets The Piano Teacher, in the best way.´ InStyle

Amaterasu Takahashi has spent her life grieving for her daughter Yuko and grandson Hideo, who were victims of the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki in 1945.

Now a widow living in America, she believes that one man was responsible for her loss; a local doctor who caused an irreparable rift between mother and daughter.

When a man claiming to be Hideo arrives on her doorstep, she is forced to revisit the past; the hurt and humiliation of her early life, the intoxication of a first romance and the realisation that if she had loved her daughter in a different way, she might still be alive today.

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"Memoirs of a Geisha meets The Piano Teacher, in the best way." InStyle

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Jackie Copleton lived in Nagasaki and Sapporo where she taught English before returning to England and becoming a journalist. A Dictionary of Mutual Understanding is her first novel, and was longlisted for the Baileys Women´s Prize for Fiction and chosen for the Richard & Judy Book Club.

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