 The Ash Garden is a novel written by Canadian author Dennis Bock and published in 2001 . It is Bock 's first novel , following the 1998 release of Olympia , a collection of short stories . The Ash Garden follows the stories of three main characters affected by World War Two : Hiroshima bombing victim Emiko , German nuclear physicist Anton Böll , and Austrian @-@ Jewish refugee Sophie Böll . The narrative is non @-@ linear , jumping between different times and places , and the point of view alternates between the characters ; Emiko 's story being written in the first person while Anton and Sophie 's stories are written in the third person . Bock took several years to write the novel , re @-@ writing several drafts , before having it published in August 2001 by HarperCollins ( Canada ) , Alfred A. Knopf ( USA ) and Bloomsbury ( UK ) . 
