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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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