Geling Yan draws from life in a tale 
of women in war

At the opening of Chinese-American author Geling Yan’s best-selling novel “Little Aunt Crane,” a 16-year-old girl by the name of Tatsuru, or “Crane,” escapes a mass suicide that Japanese elders in a Manchurian village order to preserve their honor. The young girl’s problems, however, have only just begun.