Sam Bresnahan

This week on Hear-Tell, host Diana Keough sits down with journalist and CNN International supervising producer Sam Bresnahan to discuss her powerful new book, In Blood, Flowers Bloom: A World War II Story of Valor and Forgiveness Across Generations.

 

In In Blood, Flowers Bloom, Sam traces the unexpected journey of a Japanese battle flag taken during World War II— from a battlefield in the Philippines to a shed in upstate New York — and the lives forever connected to it decades later. Weaving together the experiences of an American Iwo Jima veteran, a former Japanese naval officer who became a Buddhist monk, and the son of a Japanese soldier killed in battle, the book explores how memory, trauma, and reconciliation can transcend generations and cultural divides. 

In this episode, Sam (MFA '18) shares how she found this extraordinary story, why physical artifacts can hold deep emotional and historical truth, and what it means to confront history not just as a series of events, but as lived experience that continues to shape the present.

In Blood, Flowers Bloom: A World War II Story of Valor and Forgiveness Across Generations — order or learn more: https://bookshop.org/p/books/in-blood-flowers-bloom-a-world-war-ii-story-of-valor-and-forgiveness-across-generations-samantha-bresnahan/21617008
About Sam Bresnahan and her work: https://www.samanthabresnahan.com/about