JR Ueno-eki Kōen-guchi talks about Japan in a way that is hard to find in any other book. The main protagonist is a man, who came to Tokyo to seek work. But this is more than a story about trying to make ends meet in a huge metropolis. Yū Miri opens our eyes to a world where some of us just do not own their place. She shows Japan as a country where living a decent life is just getting so much more difficult, although it might be hard to imagine.
The life of the writer herself is also fascinating – Yū Miri was born in Japan, in Yokohama, but she is “zainichi kankokujin”, after her parents she belongs to the Korean minority living in Japan. Her parents belong to a Korean minority living in Japan. People with Korean citizenship and the status of “zainichi” are often facing discrimination and acts of violence.
After nuclear meltdown in Fukushima, Yū Miri decided to move to Minami-Sōma, a town that suffered deeply when the tsunami wave came and due to its proximity to the power plant has been almost completely deserted. It is also hometown of Hideo Furukawa which he described poignantly in his novel-essay Horses, Horses, In the End the Light Remains Pure. Yū Miri fights for the town to be rebuilt – she bought a house there, opened a bookstore called Full House, she runs a local theatre house. People throughout Japan can buy their books from Full House. All you need to do is access the website and answer questions about yourself (not entirely connected to reading, but rather concerning other habits and mood) and declare a budget. Yū Miri chooses a perfect selection for you and ships out the books from Fukushima.
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