Tokyo Ueno Station - Softcover

Yu Miri

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1911284169 ISBN 13: 9781911284161

Publisher: Tilted Axis Press, 2019

Synopsis

As a work of post-tsunami literature and a protest against the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, this novel is of utmost importance to this moment, a powerful rebuke to the Imperial system and a sensitive, deeply felt depiction of the lives of Japan's most vulnerable people.

Kazu is dead. Born in Fukushima in 1933, the same year as the Emperor, his life is tied by a series of coincidences to the Imperial family and has been shaped at every turn by modern Japanese history. But his life story is also marked by bad luck, and now, in death, he is unable to rest easily, haunting the park near Ueno Station. It is here that Kazu s life in Tokyo began and ended, having arrived there to work as a labourer in the run up to the 1964 Tokyo Olympics before ending his days living in the vast homeless villages in the park, traumatised by the destruction of the 2011 tsunami and enraged by the announcement of the 2020 Olympics.

About this title

About the Author:

A Japanese author of Korean descent, Yu Miri is the winner of Japan's most prestigious literary prize, the Akutagawa, and several of her novels have been bestsellers as has her multivolume autobiography, of her colourful life running away from school to join a theatre troupe and falling in love with its much older director. Writing openly about the discrimination received by her ethnic Korean community, though, has also meant criticism and even death threats from ultra-conservative Japanese. After the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, she relocated to Fukushima, the site of the disaster, where she currently hosts a radio show interviewing survivors.

About this edition

• Publisher: Tilted Axis Press
• Publication date: 2019
• ISBN 10: 1911284169
• ISBN 13: 9781911284161
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 180