THE PRESIDENT WHO DARED TO DREAM: Alberto Fujimori of Peru, by Rei Kimura. Worcester, U.K.: Eyelevel Books, 184 pp., $14.90 (paper).

Peru and Japan just celebrated the 100th anniversary of the first Japanese immigrants' arrival in Peru on April 3, 1899. President Alberto Fujimori, himself the son of Japanese immigrants who landed in the 1930s, is one of the most successful presidents in Peru's history, having saved the country from terrorist insurgency and hyperinflation in the early 1990s. These factors point to a unique relationship linking Japan and Peru.

Here is a compact, self-published biography of Fujimori celebrating his accomplishments and Japanese ancestry. Rei Kimura describes how Fujimori's family dealt with poverty and racial prejudice in the 1940s along with the upheaval of World War II.

By outlining the steps in the man's career, Kimura succeeds in explaining how his personal triumph was possible against all odds.