Sachiko and her husband Harry live in a village on the North-east coast of Japan. They are both struggling to adapt to life as new parents to their infant son Tashi. In the aftermath of the tsunami, Sachiko wakes alone. Her family is missing. She begins a desperate search until radiation fallout from the Fukushima power plant forces her to leave the area. She moves to Tokyo, and a different life. Harry has fled to a refuge on an isolated mountain, abandoning his family. He lives there, haunted by guilt and hovering on the edge of sanity. Will they find each other and confront the question of their missing son?
Fukushima Dreams by Zelda Rhiando was published by Unbound in 2017. As part of the Random Things Tours Blog Tour, I am delighted to welcome the author here today. She's talking about the books that are special to her in My Life In Books.
My Life In Books - Zelda Rhiando
Out - Natsuo Kirino
A young mother strangles her
philandering, gambling husband, and her co-workers help her to hide the body. Out is an unflinching,
psychologically taut foray into the dark recesses of the human soul - an
unsettling reminder that the desperate desire for freedom can make the most
ordinary person do the unimaginable. In its way
Out is a feminist book, as well as an examination of urban
blight.
How to Japan - A Tokyo
Correspondent’s Take - Colin Joyce
This book was given to me by Yumi
Aoyagi in Tokyo, and apart from being a great introduction to Japanese customs,
it was also a useful insight into the life of the expatriate, invaluable in
developing the character Harry in Fukushima Dreams. Colin Joyce is brilliant an
encapsulating the embarrassment of the gaijin
(foreigner), and his fascination and increasing affection
for his adopted country shines through.
Ichi-F - Kazuto Tatsuta
This is a graphic memoir of life as a
cleanup worker in the Fukushima Daichi Nuclear Plant, published in serial
format from 2014-2016. It’s an unflinching portrayal of the dangers and
mundanities of the work of cleaning up after the disaster of 2011, and a
compelling insight into post-fukushima life in Japan.
Horses, Horses, in the End the
Light Remains Pure - Hideo Furukawa
Furukawa wrote this novella in one
month, immediately following the tsunami of 2011. He is a native of Fukushima
Prefecture, but was away when the disaster occurred. It’s both a memoir, and a
meditation on the redemptive power of writing, this book plays with form, in a
way that is reminiscent of Nabokov, to create a sense of liberation, chaos and
loss.
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman -
Haruki Murakami
The stories in this collection range
from surreal to poignant, the quotidian to the fantastic, and between them
create an extraordinary world in which anything may happen. There’s a hypnotic
and spellbinding quality to this through-the-looking-glass Japan, that forces
the reader to reexamine their concept of ‘ordinary’.
Six Four - Hideo Yokoyama
Yokoyama worked for many years as an
investigative reporter before switching to fiction and writing Six Four. The
title refers to a notorious real life case, where the investigation was botched
by the police and the perpetrator not brought to justice for many years. In a
country with a 95% conviction rate, this was considered a great disgrace
Yokoyama takes the real events and weaves a remarkable revenge drama, revealing
as much about Japan and its people as the mystery at its heart.
Frozen Dreams - Tatematsu Wahei
Based on the true story of six
university students who go climbing despite warnings of bad weather, and are
caught in an avalanche. Miraculously, one of the climbers survives for four
days after his companions have perished, and revisits his life as he gradually
loses feeling, and eventually, consciousness. It’s an amazingly evocative
description of Japan’s frozen wilderness.
An Artist of the Floating World -
Kazuo Ishiguro
Ishiguro is a master of spare elegance,
communicating worlds in a few words, and this was the first of his books that I
encountered, as a teenager many years ago. It’s a beautiful portrait of a Japan
rebuilding itself after World War II that spans the decades of the
protagonist’s life until he is looking back at his early passions, and
wondering at how they have mellowed into the serenity of old age. The
tranquillity is marred by a dark shadow…
The Oxford Book of Japanese Short
Stories - Edited by Theodore Goosen
This definitive book presents stories
from 1860 to the present day. It’s an incredible selection, and is a book that
I return to again and again.
Zelda Rhiando - December 2018
Zelda Rhiando was
born in Dublin and read English Literature at Cambridge.
She lives in South
London with her husband, two daughters and four cats, and is one of the
founders of the Brixton BookJam.
She is the author of two novels, Caposcripti
and Fukushima Dreams.
Website: http://www.badzelda.com/
Twitter : @badzelda
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