- 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
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The Last Children of Tokyo
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‘Encountering a real animal – not just its name – would have set Mumei’s heart on fire.’ Translated from the Japanese by Margaret Mitsutani.
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‘I was perfectly content with my new life until I began to write my autobiography.’
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To Zagreb
Yoko Tawada
‘You didn’t know where you wanted to end up, had never considered how much time you had left.’