Whispers from a Storm: Fragments from a Japanese Esperantist in China during the Second Sino-Japanese War

Whispers from a Storm is a collection of political writing by the Japanese human rights activist and Esperantist Hasegawa Teru. In 1937, the twenty-five-year-old Hasegawa sailed from her home in Nara for Shanghai to join the resistance movement against the Japanese Imperial Army’s invasion of China. Writing in Esperanto as Verda Majo, Hasegawa penned essays, open-letters, and reminiscences—stunning artefacts written with fire and pathos—for an international audience and translated here into English for the first time. Hasegawa’s work interrogates the nature of patriotism, solidarity, and justice in the face of fascism and is as relevant today as it was more than half a century ago. Chief among the works in this collection is Hasegawa’s unfinished autobiography, Inside Fighting China, an illuminating text that not only offers a rare glimpse into how women, refugees, and internationalists from all over China endured and rallied during a turbulent and bloody time, but also shines a light on one of Esperanto’s most creative and prolific periods.

Whispers from a Storm will introduce readers to an extraordinary figure of transnationalist history whose words will inspire and serve as a testament to the labor of the esperantoj, “those who hope.”

• Hasegawa Teru, Author

  Under the nom de plume Verda Majo (Green May), Hasegawa Teru (1912–1947) wrote and published searing criticisms of Japan’s invasion of China in 1937 and its aftermath.

• Adam Kuplowsky, Translator

  Adam Kuplowsky is a translator based in Toronto.