Great fire. Shirley Hazzard. 2004.

Alfred Leigh, a thirty-two-year-old British officer with a heroic war record, is sent to Japan to write his impressions of war’s aftermath in the area devastated by the atom bomb. Restless, estranged from his parents, divorced and uncertain of his future in civilian life, he welcomes an assignment that will deepen his knowledge of Asia. Having lived in Hong Kong as a child and later travelled widely in China, Leith has broader sympathies than most of his colleagues. He observes with growing distaste the psychological distortions that follow the Allied victory. At their best, the victors are patronising about anything Asian; at their worst, they take self-aggrandising pleasure in humiliating the vanquished