Cover of "Dying in a Strange Land."

HONOLULU — “Dying in a Strange Land,” the latest novel by Milton Murayama, has been published by University of Hawaii Press.

This long-awaited novel brings to a close the saga of the Oyama family. Familiar faces from “All I Asking for Is My Body,” “Five Years on a Rock” and “Plantation Boy” return to advance the story from the years immediately after World War II to the 1980s.

After her husband sinks the family deep in debt, strong-willed and pragmatic Sawa takes charge. She says it’s senseless to have so many children and not have one finish college, and she pushes Kiyo, Ann and Scott to get college degrees.

Tosh, the eldest, has long been saddled with the burden of his family’s failures in addition to his own. Even after he becomes an architect, he is quick to blame his problems on oya kohkoh (filial piety).

Living on the East Coast and unable to make ends meet as a writer, Kiyo, the third son, takes any job that doesn’t leave him too exhausted to write in his spare time. At 52, he finally finds acclaim when he writes a novel about Issei and Nisei in rural Hawaii.

Not much is expected of Miwa, the fifth child and second daughter. Pregnant at 16 and forced to leave school, she is rejected by her family and bullied by her in-laws until she finds work as a maid at one of the new hotels in west Maui.

Just as earlier generations struggled to survive the diaspora from Japan to Hawaii and beyond, the younger generation must deal with the collision between Japanese and American values, between duty to family and personal freedom.

Murayama was born in Lahaina, Maui, and grew up in the nearby plantation camp of Pu’ukoli’i. During World War II, he trained at the Military Intelligence Service Language School at Camp Savage in Minnesota, and served as an interpreter in India and China.

In addition to his novels, he is the author of two plays, “Yoshitsune” and “Althea.” He lives in San Francisco.