Ambitious in scope and spanning decades, Yuko Tsushima¡¯s 2013 ¡°Wildcat Dome¡± uses an unreliable, shifting perspective to represent the instability of historical narrative.

Published last month in English translation by Lisa Hofmann-Kuroda, the novel centers on the mixed-race orphans of American soldiers, ¡ª children who were abandoned during the U.S. military occupation of Japan (1945-52), ostracized from Japanese society and raised in segregated orphanages such as the real-life Elizabeth Saunders Home (though the book features a fictional orphanage).

Wildcat Dome, by Yuko Tsushima. Translated by Lisa Hofmann-Kuroda. 272 pages, MACMILLAN, fiction.