- Published: 07/06/2018
- ISBN: 9781846276712
- Granta Books
- 144 pages
The Last Children of Tokyo
Yoko Tawada
Translated by Margaret Mitsutani
Yoshiro thinks he might never die. A hundred years old and counting, he is one of Japan’s many ‘old-elderly’; men and women who remember a time before the air and the sea were poisoned, before terrible catastrophe promted Japan to shut itself off from the rest of the world. He may live for decades yet, but he knows his beloved great-grandson – born frail and prone to sickness – might not survive to adulthood. Day after day, it takes all of Yoshiro’s sagacity to keep Mumei alive.
As hopes for Japan’s youngest generation fade, a secretive organisation embarks on an audacious plan to find a cure – might Yoshiro’s great-grandson be the key to saving the last children of Tokyo?
£9.99
A mini-epic of eco-terror, family drama and speculative fiction... a book unlike any other
Guardian
An open-hearted fable... Tawada's uber-isolationist neo-Japan is much less cute than Wes Anderson's. It's also much, much funnier
Financial Times
The Last Children of Tokyo has a recessive, lunar beauty... Arresting, with a flickering brilliance
Parul Sehgal, International New York Times
From the Same Author
Memoirs of a Polar Bear
, translated by Susan Bernofsky
Three bears.
The first, a diligent memoirist whose unlikely success forces her to flee Soviet Russia.
The second, her daughter, a skilled dancer in an East Berlin circus.
The third, Knut, a baby bear born and raised in Berlin Zoo at the beginning of the 21st century.
Here, then, is the enchanting story of three extraordinary bears, brought to life by one of Japan’s most inventive and dazzling novelists.
£12.99
Yoko Tawada on Granta.com
Fiction
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Granta 142
The Last Children of Tokyo
Yoko Tawada
‘Encountering a real animal – not just its name – would have set Mumei’s heart on fire.’ Translated from the Japanese by Margaret Mitsutani.
