Little Bird & The Tiger

Little Bird and the Tiger is embedded within Japan's transition to modernity, its outburst into Asia, much like America's contemporaneous 'manifest destiny.' The story shifts between two perspectives, those of Tachibana Hideo and Umezawa Tozaburo. Tachibana, an orphaned young woman who discovers martial arts as a child, wandering from dojo to dojo, both to perfect her art and to secure some food and shelter for the night. Becoming a consummate warrior in a society that denies women an independent life, she is nicknamed "Little Bird." Under their breath, however, men refer to her as a 'Shrike, ' a ferocious carnivorous bird.
Umezawa is one of those tragic young men who march off to serve a cause they do not understand at the behest of men who use that bravery to their own ends. He becomes one of the many Japanese adventurers, known as tairiku ronin, who wandered Northeast Asia, joining local bandit gangs, involving themselves in revolutionary organizations, and most importantly, serving as spies to gather information on the countries that Japan intended to eventually conquer. His wanderings take him into the Primoye, the Maritime Provinces of Russia, joining the Nani (tribal people), then Khunkuz (Chinese bandits), then political terrorists in Korea and finally a return to Japan, careening from one locale to another like a wounded tiger, a path of violence and heartbreak.
The only way Tachibana can maintain her integrity is to be inviolate, a woman alone. Umezawa becomes an extravagant man, who rationalizes everything he does with the warrior creed that honor is in service, in his case, to the will of the Emperor. For these people (and many others in the book), violence is a language, a "physical dialogue," with devastating consequences, win or lose. Within all these themes is interwoven that of love, both redemptive and tragic. Set during a time of sweeping cultural change, where Japan moved with lighting speed from an isolated land of feudal lords and samurai to a mechanized, world-power, we are given a window into both the world of Japanese martial arts, and the often-misunderstood role of women in both that world and Japanese society at large, all Both a master-teacher of the very tradition he records and drawing from the real-life experiences of the women who preserved that lineage, Amdur brings a degree of authenticity to these powerful women, and the changing face of martial arts in their world that is only surpassed by his psychological insights into the drives, passions and disappointments that shape our souls. -Gregory Mele, author of Flowers of Battle - The Complete Martial Works of Fiore dei Liberi Inspired by historical characters, Ellis Amdur creates a world as brutal and complex as Meiji Japan actually was. Little Bird & Tiger's two unforgettable protagonists fight their way through the era's traumas and turbulence with weapons, will, and hard-won wisdom. In passages as raging and beautiful as a caged tiger, Amdur plots their journeys toward the most unexpected and tender battle of all.
Cynthia Gralla, author of The Floating World and The Demimonde in Japanese Literature