The Martyr and the Red Kimono A Fearless Priest’s Sacrifice and A New Generation of Hope in Japan

The remarkable true story of Saint Maximilian Kolbe, and the two men in war-torn Japan whose lives he changed forever.

On the 14th of August 1941, a Polish priest named Maximilian Maria Kolbe was murdered in Auschwitz.

Kolbe's life had been remarkable. Fiercely intelligent and driven, he founded a movement of Catholicism and spent several years in Nagasaki, ministering to the 'hidden Christians' who had emerged after centuries of oppression. A Polish nationalist as well as a priest, he gave sanctuary to fleeing refugees and ran Poland's largest publishing operation, drawing the wrath of the Nazis. His death was no less remarkable: he volunteered to die, saving the life of a fellow prisoner.

It was an act that profoundly transformed the lives of two Japanese men. Tomei Ozaki was just seventeen when the US dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, destroying his home and his family. Masatoshi Asari worked on a farm in Hokkaido during the war and was haunted by the inhumane treatment of prisoners in a nearby camp. Forged in the crucible of an unforgiving war, both men drew inspiration from Kolbe's sacrifice, dedicating their lives to humanity and justice. Ozaki followed in his footsteps and became a friar. Asari created cherry trees as peace offerings.

In The Martyr and the Red Kimono, award-winning author Naoko Abe weaves together a deeply moving and inspirational true story of resistance, sacrifice, guilt and atonement.

Naoko Abe is a Japanese journalist and non-fiction writer. She was the first female political writer to cover the prime minister’s office, the foreign ministry and the defence ministry at Mainichi Shimbun, one of Japan’s largest newspapers. Since moving to London with her British husband and their two boys in 2001, she has worked as a freelance writer and has published five books in Japanese. Her biography of Collingwood Ingram in Japanese won the prestigious Nihon Essayist Club Award in 2016. She has now written an adaptation of the book for English-language readers. She is a trained classical pianist and an advanced yoga practitioner.