Zengo’s Revolt, a novel written in 1961 by an American from the Japanese point of view, is a story of struggle, passion and survival in the unforgiving jungles of New Britain Island at the end of World War II. Sub-lieutenant Zengo Takakuwa flees the lost campaign with Michiyo Sanada, the courtesan of a superior Japanese officer who has left her and his troops to approaching U.S. forces.

Defiantly loyal to her colonel and Emperor, Michiyo rages against the defecting soldier’s attempt to save her with an unrelenting, vicious attack of Takakuwa’s honor and courage as he takes her to hide in the jungle to wait out the end of the war. In a wild setting of mangrove swamp and rain forest to the edge of the sea -- their near-naked bodies laced with cuts -- Zengo keeps Michiyo alive against her frequent wishes to die, her ugly taunts and her bitter opposition. Above all, there is the problem for Zengo of convincing Michiyo that he was right to revolt against the course their country has taken. Successive, frightful events prove that there is no easy way out.