The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

The location is Dejima in Nagasaki Harbor in 1799. It is a "high-walled, fan-shaped artificial island" that serves as the only port and window onto the outside world for the Japanese Empire, with the purpose of keeping the West at bay. It is also the furthest outpost of the Dutch East Indies Company, which was devastated by war, and serves as a de facto prison for the twelve foreigners who are allowed to live and work there. To this place of devious merchants, deceitful interpreters, costly courtesans, earthquakes, and typhoons comes Jacob de Zoet, a devout and resourceful young clerk who has five years in the East to earn a fortune of sufficient size to win the hand of his wealthy fiancée back in Holland.

However, a fortuitous meeting with Orito Aibagawa—the scarred daughter of a samurai physician and midwife to the influential judge in the city—overshadows Jacob's initial goals. Propriety, profit, and pleasure all have hazy boundaries, and eventually Jacob's view becomes blurred due to a reckless vow that was ultimately breached. There will be more repercussions than Jacob could have ever imagined. "Who ain't a gambler in the glorious Orient, with his very life?" a cynical coworker says.

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet is the most remarkable work of its renowned author, a masterful blend of brilliant language, extraordinary research, and reckless imagination.