MARCH WAS

MADE OF YARN

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 V I N TAG E B O O K S O R IG I N A L , M A RC H 2 012

Introduction and compilation copyright 2012 by Elmer Luke

All translations are copyright 2012 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 2011,
except where otherwise noted:
The Crows and the Girl copyright 2011 by Brother & Sister Nishioka
The Charm copyright 2011 by Kiyoshi Shigematsu
Box Story copyright 2011 by Tetsuya Akikawa
Nightcap copyright 2011 by Yoko Ogawa
God Bless You, 1993 and God Bless You, 2011 copyright 1993, 2011
by Hiromi Kawakami
March Yarn copyright 2011 by Mieko Kawakami
Ride on Time copyright 2011 by Kazushige Abe
Words copyright 2011 by Shuntaro Tanikawa
The remainder of the pieces were commissioned for this book and are
copyright 2012 in the name of their respective authors.
This book is published with the support of the Read Japan
program of The Nippon Foundation.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
March 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 978-0-307-94886-1
1. Japanese literature21st centuryTranslations into English.
2. Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami, Japan, 2011Literary collections.
3. Fukushima Nuclear Disaster, Japan, 2011Literary collections.
I. Karashima, David James. II. Luke, Elmer. III. Title.
PL782.E1M29 2012
895.6'080358520512dc23
2011050010

Book design by Claudia Martinez

www.vintagebooks.com
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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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
3
THE CHARM

Kiyoshi Shigematsu
13
NIGHTCAP

Yoko Ogawa
35

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CONTENTS

2011
Hiromi Kawakami
37

GOD BLESS YOU,

MARCH YARN

Mieko Kawakami
55
LULU

Shinji Ishii
71
ONE YEAR LATER

J. D. McClatchy
93
GRANDMAS BIBLE

Natsuki Ikezawa
95
PIECES

Mitsuyo Kakuta
109
SIXTEEN YEARS LATER, IN THE SAME PLACE

Hideo Furukawa
127
THE CROWS AND THE GIRL

Brother & Sister Nishioka

137

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CONTENTS

BOX STORY

Tetsuya Akikawa
151
DREAM FROM A FISHERMANS BOAT

Barry Yourgrau
157
HIYORIYAMA

Kazumi Saeki
163
RIDE ON TIME

Kazushige Abe
183
LITTLE EUCALYPTUS LEAVES

Ryu Murakami
189
AFTER THE DISASTER, BEFORE THE DISASTER

David Peace
197

Authors
207
Translators
211

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INTRODUCTION

arch 11, 2011. An earthquake off the northeastern coast

of Japanmagnitude 9.0, duration six minutes, type
megathrust unleashes a fifty-foot tsunami that within fifteen minutes slams its way ashore, surging inland six miles,
crushing all in its path, and triggering the slow, relentless
leak of radiation from first two, then three, then five nuclear
power plants. In ones wildest imagination, this is beyond
conceivable.
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 terrifying magnitude. Nor does the death toll, or the number
of missing, or the danger from radiation, which seems to be
controlled incrementally, until the meltdown begins. Nor
does the overwhelming sense of loss and despair.

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INTRODUCTION

Life goes on, indifferently and pitilessly, but life is not

the same, and life will have been reconsidered. Here, a wideranging selection of writers offer their response to this
uncharted moment significant for the double blow we have
sustained from both nature and mana portentous marker
in modern human history. The piecesnonfiction, fiction,
including a manga, and poetrywith perspectives near and
distant, reconceive the catastrophe, imagine a future and a
past, interpret dreams, impel purpose, point blame, pray for
hope. Specific in reference, universal in scope, these singular heartfelt contributions comprise an artistic record of this
time.
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 immediately
following the disaster when lives, seemingly secure and
in forward motion, were in a matter of minutes altered,
thrown off course, beyond repair. This theme is most
evident for writers from Tohoku, in northeastern Japan,
which bore the physical (let alone emotional) brunt of
the disaster. But no writer from Tokyo the uncomfortable middle ground or, for that matter, elsewhere distant (and safe) went unaffected or untouched. Life might
have seemed to go on, but not without evacuation packs,
aftershocks, brown- outs, unwashed clothes, empty store
shelves, worry about contamination, worry for young
ones and elder ones, and our future as well as nightmares, depression, worst memories, and prayers.
In this anthology, Tohoku natives Hideo Furukawa and
Kazumi Saeki draw upon the immediacy of family and locality, where history provides a sense of continuity, however

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xix

tenuous it may be under the circumstances; while Natsuki

Ikezawa, who himself spent weeks delivering emergency supplies in stricken areas, focuses on the unexpected scope of
emotions of those who give care.
From Tokyo, Mieko Kawakami depicts poignantly, if
painfullyin the story from which the title of this collection was takenhow an earthquake far away can change the
terms of something as simple as pregnancy. Similarly, with
Mitsuyo Kakuta, for whom the entire notions of intimacy
and dependency are called into question.
Hiromi Kawakami, whose work represented here was
the first literary piece to emerge in Japan from the stunned
silence after March 11, revisits the story that launched her
career eighteen years beforewith a landscape physically and
emotionally changed. Her updated story is accompanied
with a postscript and the original story that the new work
was adapted from.
Kazushige Abe takes us to a place where we are perhaps most reluctant to gointo the ocean and beneath the
wavesin an ironically positive tale about the irrational
obsession to prevail. And Tetsuya Akikawa, in a tale lined
with bureaucratic obsession, suggests redemption where we
least expect it.
From the greater distance of western Japan, Yoko Ogawa
writes of reposeand our need for it. David Peace, who has
returned to Tokyo after several years in England, inhabits the
world of Ryu-nosuke Akutagawa as he experiences the social
trauma of the Great Kanto- Earthquake of 1923. Barry Yourgrau, sitting at his desk in New York, connects fragments
of the Japan of his imagination to create a dreamlike narrative of postMarch 11 life. Meanwhile, Ryu Murakami seeks

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INTRODUCTION

meaningand hopein the twigs from a felled eucalyptus

tree that he has stuck into dirt.
In Yoko Tawadas The Island of Eternal Life, a group
of doctors gathers fireflies to harness for evening light as
they seek a cure of radiation sickness, while in Shinji Ishiis
Lulu, translucent women descend each night to comfort
children 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 poets
Shuntaro Tanikawa and J. D. McClatchy remind us, in the
depth and breadth of their response, of the value of words,
simply written, gently spoken.

The idea for this project took gradual shape as we traveled

among Tokyo, Tohoku, London, and New York, watching
from near and far as March 11 and its aftermath unfolded.
A thought became a shared idea that was developed further
as we shoveled debris into the back of trucks in Tohoku,
as riots racked London, as storms struck the East Coast of
the United States, as a heat wave hit Tokyo, as floods raged
through Bangkok, even as the cleanup in northeastern Japan
proceeded but radiation continued to leak. It has been that
kind of year.
We wish to thank the writers who have seen through
the thick haze of the moment to clarity to offer us these
pieces. We thank the translators who responded with care
and generosity to their tasks. We acknowledge our excellent editors Lexy Bloom, at Vintage; Liz Foley, at Harvill
Secker; and Kazuto Yamaguchi, at Kodanshafor their
patronage, encouragement, and advocacy of this project on

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three continents. We wish to acknowledge the Read Japan

program of The Nippon Foundation for its support of the
publication of this anthology. Proceeds from the book will
go to support charities that have been sparing no effort in
helping to rebuild towns, homes, and individual lives in
Tohoku.

Elmer Luke, New York

David Karashima, Tokyo

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PURCHASEACOPY

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