Books from Japan

In the concluding volume of Yoko Tawada’s imaginative Scattered All Over the Earth trilogy, Hiruko continues her search for her lost homeland, a country that seems to have disappeared from maps and from collective memory. Travelling aboard a mail boat across the Baltic Sea, she is accompanied by an unusual group of companions: Knut, a Danish linguist; Akash, an Indian man exploring gender identity; Nanook, a Greenlander and former sushi chef; Nora, a German museum worker concerned with social justice and the environment; and Susanoo, a mysterious Japanese cook. As the voyage unfolds, unexpected passengers—including figures from literature and mythology—complicate their journey and challenge their understanding of history, nationality and belonging. Blending surrealism, humour and philosophical speculation, Tawada explores how language shapes identity and how people build connections across cultural boundaries. The novel ultimately imagines belonging not as a fixed geographical inheritance, but as something that can emerge through dialogue, storytelling and shared experience.

Fifteen-year-old Hana Ito lives with her young mother in a cramped Tokyo apartment, struggling with poverty and the uncertainty of a life without security. In the late 1990s, when Japan is grappling with economic stagnation, the future seems particularly bleak for those born without privilege. Then Hana meets Kimiko Yoshikawa, an older woman whose confidence and warmth offer her a glimpse of another possible life. Together, they establish Lemon, a modest bar that becomes a refuge for Hana and a place where she begins to imagine a future beyond mere survival. As the business grows, Hana forms relationships with other young women who, like her, are trying to find their footing in a world that offers them few choices. But financial desperation, dangerous acquaintances, and difficult moral compromises gradually threaten the fragile community they have built. Decades later, news of a shocking criminal case involving Kimiko forces Hana to revisit the past and confront the consequences of decisions she has spent years trying to forget. Blending crime fiction with an intimate portrait of female relationships, Kawakami explores poverty, ambition, betrayal, and the ways women struggle to protect one another in an unequal society. The novel asks how far people will go to survive—and whether the bonds formed in desperate circumstances can withstand the weight of time and guilt.