Nori Kamiza

Noriko "Nori" Kamiza is the novel's protagonist. She is the biracial, illegitimate daughter of Japanese aristocrat Seiko Kamiza and African American GI James Ferrier. Nori was born in secret and shame, and her existence spells the of Seiko's marriage. James dies not long after Nori's birth, and Seiko raises Nori for eight years before bringing her to the Kamiza family estate in Kyoto and leaving Nori there.

Nori spends her childhood locked in an attic, enduring chemical baths to lighten her skin and beatings at the hands of her grandmother, Yuko. Nori experiences shame around her race and birth, seeing herself to be a cursed child who can only bring shame on the family. Nori believes she must obey and submit, and she does her best to please her grandmother.

When Nori is eleven, she meets her half-brother Akira and her world changes entirely. Akira treats her...