Jamie Ford – författare

1986, The Panama HotelThe old Seattle landmark has been boarded up for decades, but now the new owner has made a startling discovery in the basement: personal belongings stored away by Japanese families sent to interment camps during World War II. Among the fascinated crowd gathering outside the hotel stands Henry Lee, and, as the owner unfurls a distinctive parasol, he is flooded by memories of his childhood. He wonders if by some miracle, in amongst the boxes of dusty treasures, lies a link to the Okabe family, and the girl he lost his heart to so many years ago.

Twelve-year-old William Eng, a Chinese-American, has lived at Seattle's Sacred Heart Orphanage since his mother disappeared five years ago. During a trip to the movie theatre, William glimpses an actress on the silver screen who goes by the name of Willow Frost. Struck by her features, William is convinced that the movie star is his mother.

1909, Seattle. At the World's Fair a half-Chinese boy called Ernest Young is raffled off as a prize. He ends up working in a brothel in Seattle's famed Red Light District and falls in love with Maisie, the daughter of a flamboyant madam, and Fahn, a karayuki-san, a Japanese maid sold into servitude.On the eve of the new World's Fair in 1962, Ernest looks back on the past, the memories he made with his beloved wife while his daughter, a reporter, begins to unravel their tragic past.