Today, we will be looking at the novel Tokyo Ueno Station by Yū Miri and translated by Morgan Giles. This is an amazing book and needs to be read with no distractions. There is a lot to take in and the message that Yū Miri is trying to get is beautiful.
The protagonist Kazu tells the story of his life and death and connects important events that coincide with his life and how tragedy and bad luck led to his life going down a certain path. And you can feel all the pain and anguish through Miri’s writing. Miri also incorporates true events such as the Olympics construction as well as the 2011 tsunami.
We get to see Kazu’s life and him providing for his family and never having time to spend with his wife and kids. He lived a life in poverty and suffering and in the end, he decided to live life as a homeless person so he wouldn’t be a burden to his granddaughter. And we see what life is like as a homeless person for him and how horribly they are treated.
Stories like these always need to be told and Miri does an amazing job making every word come to life. I wasn’t going to write a review for this book just because the heavy content makes it hard to properly review without spoiling much. But this is a beautiful novel that people need to read. Books like these are why I enjoy reading and finding gems that change the way you view the world.
Nothing I say will adequately capture the essence of this novel but I can praise it as one of the best short novels I have ever read. The novel was published in 2014 in Japan and translated to English in 2019 and went on to win the National Book Award for Translated Literature for the English translation by translator Morgan Giles.
One of my recent goals has been to read more Japanese books and I am lucky that we are getting a lot of Japanese books translated to English in recent years. And this had led to many amazing Japanese books getting the attention they deserve, especially internationally. There have been a lot of these books winning awards and reminds you that there are many great books yet to be translated.
This is a book that I recommend to everyone who loves great storytelling. Few authors can paint a scene like this and you feel every word, every line and have to appreciate the sentiment that Miri tries to convey in this novel.