Sign-In
Cart
Sacred Cesium Ground and Isa's Deluge: Two Novellas of Japan's 3/11 Disaster
Paperback
Series: Weatherhead Books on Asia
Please select the version of book you would like to purchase.
ISBN10: 0231189435
ISBN13: 9780231189439
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: Jan 29 2019
Pages: 176
Weight: 0.55
Height: 0.60 Width: 5.40 Depth: 8.40
Language: English
ISBN13: 9780231189439
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: Jan 29 2019
Pages: 176
Weight: 0.55
Height: 0.60 Width: 5.40 Depth: 8.40
Language: English
In these two novellas, Kimura Yūsuke explores human and animal life in northern Japan after the natural and nuclear disasters of March 11, 2011. Kimura inscribes the Triple Disaster into a rich regional tradition of storytelling, incorporating far-flung voices and experiences to testify to life and the desire to represent it in the aftermath of calamity.
In Sacred Cesium Ground, a woman from Tokyo travels to volunteer at a cattle farm known as the Fortress of Hope, tending irradiated animals abandoned after the reactor meltdown. The farm closely resembles an actual ranch that has been widely covered in Japan, and the story's portrayal of those who stubbornly care for animals in spite of the danger speaks to the sense of futility and meaningfulness in the wake of traumatic events. Isa's Deluge depicts a family of fishermen whose crotchety patriarch draws on old tales of the floods that have plagued the region to fashion himself as the father of the tsunami. Together, the novellas present often-unheard voices of one of Japan's peripheral regions and their anger toward the government and Tokyo for mishandling and forgetting their part of the country. Kimura's command of dialect and conversational language is masterfully translated by Doug Slaymaker. Postapocalyptically surreal yet teeming with life, Kimura's stories will be a revelation for readers looking for a new perspective on the disaster's consequences for Japan and on the interrelated meanings of human and animal lives and deaths.
In Sacred Cesium Ground, a woman from Tokyo travels to volunteer at a cattle farm known as the Fortress of Hope, tending irradiated animals abandoned after the reactor meltdown. The farm closely resembles an actual ranch that has been widely covered in Japan, and the story's portrayal of those who stubbornly care for animals in spite of the danger speaks to the sense of futility and meaningfulness in the wake of traumatic events. Isa's Deluge depicts a family of fishermen whose crotchety patriarch draws on old tales of the floods that have plagued the region to fashion himself as the father of the tsunami. Together, the novellas present often-unheard voices of one of Japan's peripheral regions and their anger toward the government and Tokyo for mishandling and forgetting their part of the country. Kimura's command of dialect and conversational language is masterfully translated by Doug Slaymaker. Postapocalyptically surreal yet teeming with life, Kimura's stories will be a revelation for readers looking for a new perspective on the disaster's consequences for Japan and on the interrelated meanings of human and animal lives and deaths.
Also in
Literary Fiction
Elizabeth Spencer: Novels & Stories (Loa #344): The Voice at the Back Door / The Light in the Piazza / Knights and Dragons / Stories
Spencer, Elizabeth
Hardcover
$38.00
James Fenimore Cooper: The Leatherstocking Tales Vol. 1 (Loa #26): The Pioneers / The Last of the Mohicans / The Prairie
Cooper, James Fenimore
Hardcover
From $19.99
The Underworld U.S.A. Trilogy, Volume I: American Tabloid, the Cold Six Thousand; Introduction by Thomas Mallon
Ellroy, James
Hardcover
$33.25
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Other Stories (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)
Stevenson, Robert Louis
Paperback
$5.99
Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams: Short Stories, Prose, and Diary Excerpts
Plath, Sylvia
Paperback
$9.50
The Patrick Melrose Novels: Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, and Mother's Milk
St Aubyn, Edward
Paperback
From $9.99