Growing up, journalist and presenter Kumi Taguchi thought her father was just difficult: reserved to the point of silence, obsessively frugal, and – after her parents’ divorce – almost entirely absent. 

Still, when her father died, she was far away and Kumi’s feelings about him – and her own heritage – remained tangled.

But just because a parent has gone doesn’t mean they’re absent. Over time Kumi came to understand more about what made her father as he was, including his harrowing experiences as a child in wartime Japan and, above all, the culture she both loved and felt burdened by. 

Kumi talks to journalist Leigh Sales about her journey to understand her father – and herself – in her book The Good Daughter, published by Simon and Schuster Australia.

Like what you heard? Buy your copy here.