In her first novel, Yannick Murphy surveys the landscape of imperialism through the unflinching gaze of an adolescent girl named Tian. Her name - short for Christiane - is a mark of her divided loyalties. Half French and half Chinese, Tian is detained in an isolated jungle camp when the Japanese invade Indochina at the outset of World War II. With spellbinding candor, Tian details her life in the camp while she waits for liberation with her mother, her baby sister, and her Chinese amah.

Tian takes a remarkably clear-eyed view of her circumstances. The camp is a perilous place, where brutality can slip without warning into nightmarish comedy. Tian's mother escapes into memory, filling the tropical nights with tales of France and lost romance. Her amah proffers enigmatic bits of ancient wisdom. But with all the stark frankness of youth, Tian maintains an unnerving pragmatism and an unbending will to survive.

These prove to be her salvation when at last she and her family cross the sea of trees that separates them from freedom, and they journey from Shanghai to Saigon to Marseilles, making their way to America.

The Sea of Trees is both raw and beautiful. From one girl's small corner of one moment in history, it encompasses a universal indictment of war's psychic toll on family and country. Based on stories from the author's own family and laced with Chinese folklore, it adds a distinctly feminine contour to the map of empire.