Though the author of the book, Iris Chang also inserts herself into the narrative at various points, given the personal nature of its subject matter. Chang’s maternal grandparents lived in Nanking in the years prior to the massacre and barely managed to escape with Chang’s mother. As a result, Chang grew up hearing stories about the Nanking massacre—a rarity for young Americans, even those of Chinese heritage. As Chang grew older, she wondered about the veracity of her grandparents’ claims of Japanese butchery. She writes, “If the Rape of Nanking was truly so gory, one of the worst episodes of human barbarism in world history, as my parents insisted, then why hadn’t someone written a book about it?” (8).

The realization that the Rape of Nanking was much more than a simple folk tale dawned on Chang when she attended a 1994 museum retrospective featuring photos taken during the massacre. The following year she traveled to Nanking and became one of the first individuals to capture video footage of testimonies delivered by survivors of the massacre. During her research, Chang also managed to rescue John Rabe from the dustbin of history, tracking down his granddaughter and convincing her to finally make Rabe’s extensive diaries public.