Hōjō Tokimune

Hōjō Tokimune was the shikken, or regent, of the Kamakura shogunate during the Mongol invasions of Japan in 1274 and 1281. He directed defensive preparations, rejected demands for submission and became associated with the mobilisation of samurai resistance and Zen discipline.

Jeanne Blanchet’s Kamikaze is set in thirteenth-century Japan, Atsuko is constrained by aristocratic duty while Ichirō, a skilled swordsmith, occupies a social world far below her own.