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MARCH WAS
MADE OF YARN
z
Reflections on the Japanese
Earthquake, Tsunami, and Nuclear Meltdown
Edited by Elmer Luke and
David Karashima
VINTAGE BOOKS
A DIVISION OF RANDOM HOUSE, INC.
NEW YORK
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A VINTAGE BOOKS ORIGINAL , MARCH 2012Introduction and compilation copyright © by Elmer Luke
All translations are copyright © in the name of their respective translators.
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Vintage Books,a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by
Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
Vintage and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
The following pieces were originally published separately in Japan in ,except where otherwise noted:
“The Crows and the Girl” copyright © by Brother & Sister Nishioka“The Charm” copyright © by Kiyoshi Shigematsu
“Box Story” copyright © by Tetsuya Akikawa“Nightcap” copyright © by Yoko Ogawa
“God Bless You, ” and “God Bless You, ” copyright © , by Hiromi Kawakami
“March Yarn” copyright © by Mieko Kawakami“Ride on Time” copyright © by Kazushige Abe
“Words” copyright © by Shuntaro Tanikawa
The remainder of the pieces were commissioned for this book and arecopyright © in the name of their respective authors.
This book is published with the support of the Read Japanprogram of The Nippon Foundation.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataMarch was made of yarn : reflections on the Japanese earthquake, tsunami, and
nuclear meltdown / edited by David Karashima and Elmer Luke.
p. cm.“A Vintage Books original.”
ISBN ----
. Japanese literature— st century—Translations into English.. Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami, Japan, —Literary collections.
. Fukushima Nuclear Disaster, Japan, —Literary collections.I. Karashima, David James. II. Luke, Elmer. III. Title.
PL.EM
.' —dc
Book design by Claudia Martinez
www.vintagebooks.com
Printed in the United States of America
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CONTENTS
z
Foreword
John Burnham Schwartz xiii
Introduction
Elmer Luke and David Karashima xvii
THE ISLAND OF ETERNAL LIFE
Yoko Tawada
THE CHARM
Kiyoshi Shigematsu
NIGHTCAP
Yoko Ogawa
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CONTENTS
GOD BLESS YOU,
Hiromi Kawakami
MARCH YARN
Mieko Kawakami
LULU
Shinji Ishii
ONE YEAR LATER
J. D. McClatchy
GRA NDMA’S BIBLE
Natsuki Ikezawa
PIECES
Mitsuyo Kakuta
SIXTEEN YEARS LATER, IN THE SAME PLACE
Hideo Furukawa
THE CROWS AND THE GI RL
Brother & Sister Nishioka
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CONTENTS
BOX STORY
Tetsuya Akikawa
DREAM FROM A FISHERMAN’S BOAT
Barry Yourgrau
HIYORIYAMA
Kazumi Saeki
RIDE ON TIME
Kazushige Abe
LITTLE EUCALYPTUS LEAVES
Ryu Murakami
AFTER THE DISASTER, BEFORE TH E DISASTER
David Peace
Authors
Translators
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INTRODUCTION
z
March , . An earthquake off the northeastern coastof Japan—magnitude ., duration six minutes, type
megathrust—unleashes a fifty-foot tsunami that within fif-teen minutes slams its way ashore, surging inland six miles,crushing all in its path, and triggering the slow, relentlessleak of radiation from first two, then three, then five nuclearpower plants. In one’s wildest imagination, this is beyondconceivable.
But this is just the beginning. The waves do not stop;they recede and rush back in without ceasing. Nor do the
aftershocks, which are themselves rolling earthquakes of ter-rifying magnitude. Nor does the death toll, or the numberof missing, or the danger from radiation, which seems to becontrolled incrementally, until the meltdown begins. Nordoes the overwhelming sense of loss and despair.
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INTRODUCTION
Life goes on, indifferently and pitilessly, but life is notthe same, and life will have been reconsidered. Here, a wide-
ranging selection of writers offer their response to thisuncharted moment—significant for the double blow we havesustained from both nature and man—a portentous markerin modern human history. The pieces—nonfiction, fiction,including a manga, and poetry—with perspectives near anddistant, reconceive the catastrophe, imagine a future and a
past, interpret dreams, impel purpose, point blame, pray forhope. Specific in reference, universal in scope, these singu-lar heartfelt contributions comprise an artistic record of thistime.
Some of the pieces were written for this anthology,some were first published in literary magazines in Japan,
all amid the initial horror and uncertainty immediatelyfollowing the disaster when lives, seemingly secure andin forward motion, were in a matter of minutes altered,thrown off course, beyond repair. This theme is mostevident for writers from Tohoku, in northeastern Japan,which bore the physical (let alone emotional) brunt ofthe disaster. But no writer from Tokyo—the uncomfort-able middle ground—or, for that matter, elsewhere dis-tant (and safe) went unaffected or untouched. Life mighthave seemed to go on, but not without evacuation packs,aftershocks, brown-outs, unwashed clothes, empty storeshelves, worry about contamination, worry for youngones—and elder ones, and our future—as well as night-
mares, depression, worst memories, and prayers.In this anthology, Tohoku natives Hideo Furukawa and
Kazumi Saeki draw upon the immediacy of family and local-ity, where history provides a sense of continuity, however
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INTRODUCTION
tenuous it may be under the circumstances; while NatsukiIkezawa, who himself spent weeks delivering emergency sup-
plies in stricken areas, focuses on the unexpected scope ofemotions of those who give care.
From Tokyo, Mieko Kawakami depicts poignantly, ifpainfully—in the story from which the title of this collec-tion was taken—how an earthquake far away can change theterms of something as “simple” as pregnancy. Similarly, with
Mitsuyo Kakuta, for whom the entire notions of intimacyand dependency are called into question.
Hiromi Kawakami, whose work represented here wasthe first literary piece to emerge in Japan from the stunnedsilence after March , revisits the story that launched hercareer eighteen years before—with a landscape physically and
emotionally changed. Her “updated” story is accompaniedwith a postscript and the original story that the new workwas adapted from.
Kazushige Abe takes us to a place where we are per-haps most reluctant to go—into the ocean and beneath thewaves—in an ironically positive tale about the irrationalobsession to prevail. And Tetsuya Akikawa, in a tale linedwith bureaucratic obsession, suggests redemption where weleast expect it.
From the greater distance of western Japan, Yoko Ogawawrites of repose—and our need for it. David Peace, who hasreturned to Tokyo after several years in England, inhabits theworld of Ryu-nosuke Akutagawa as he experiences the social
trauma of the Great Kant- Earthquake of . Barry Your-grau, sitting at his desk in New York, connects fragmentsof the Japan of his imagination to create a dreamlike narra-tive of post–March life. Meanwhile, Ryu Murakami seeks
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INTRODUCTION
meaning—and hope—in the twigs from a felled eucalyptustree that he has stuck into dirt.
In Yoko Tawada’s “The Island of Eternal Life,” a groupof doctors gathers fireflies to harness for evening light asthey seek a cure of radiation sickness, while in Shinji Ishii’s“Lulu,” translucent women descend each night to comfortchildren orphaned by the disaster.
Then, in a change of pace, the Brother & Sister Nishioka
team have drawn a cautionary manga for the day, and the poetsShuntaro Tanikawa and J. D. McClatchy remind us, in thedepth and breadth of their response, of the value of words,simply written, gently spoken.
The idea for this project took gradual shape as we traveledamong Tokyo, Tohoku, London, and New York, watchingfrom near and far as March and its aftermath unfolded.A thought became a shared idea that was developed furtheras we shoveled debris into the back of trucks in Tohoku,as riots racked London, as storms struck the East Coast ofthe United States, as a heat wave hit Tokyo, as floods ragedthrough Bangkok, even as the cleanup in northeastern Japanproceeded but radiation continued to leak. It has been thatkind of year.
We wish to thank the writers who have seen throughthe thick haze of the moment to clarity to offer us thesepieces. We thank the translators who responded with care
and generosity to their tasks. We acknowledge our excel-lent editors—Lexy Bloom, at Vintage; Liz Foley, at HarvillSecker; and Kazuto Yamaguchi, at Kodansha—for theirpatronage, encouragement, and advocacy of this project on
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INTRODUCTION
three continents. We wish to acknowledge the Read Japanprogram of The Nippon Foundation for its support of the
publication of this anthology. Proceeds from the book willgo to support charities that have been sparing no effort inhelping to rebuild towns, homes, and individual lives inTohoku.
— Elmer Luke, New York
David Karashima, Tokyo
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