A Ricepaper Airplane

Book excerpt: From a hospital bed a dying man unfolds the tale of an arduous life on the fringes of a Hawai‘i sugar plantation in the 1920s. There Kim Sung Wha—laborer, patriot, revolutionary, aviator—envisioned building an airplane from ricepaper, bamboo, and the scrap parts of a broken-down bicycle, an airplane that would carry him back to his Korean homeland and to his wife and children. From the start Sung Wha’s dream is destined to fail, but this moving and passionate work is the story of a man who dares to life past the wreckage of shattered visions. His is a heroic story of loss, of deep love, and of rebirth.