The Place of Shells

WINNER OF THE AKUTAGAWA PRIZE

'A hypnotic dissection of memory, trauma and belonging'
New Statesman

'This attempt to imprint upon humanity the experiences of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami in a way that only a novel can achieve deserves to be highly esteemed'
Yoko Ogawa, author of The Memory Police

'Here we find a form of language that attempts to venture, dancing, into a past enveloped in silence'
Yoko Tawada, author of The Last Children of Tokyo

'An eerie, shimmering fever dream . . . strange and beautiful'
Jenny Mustard, author of Okay Days

At a train station in Germany, a Japanese student meets an old friend. Nomiya died a decade earlier in the Tōhoku tsunami, but he has suddenly returned.

The reunited friends share a past that's a world away from the tranquility of Göttingen. Yet Nomiya's arrival destabilises something in the city: mysterious guests appear, eerie discoveries are made in the forest and, as the past becomes increasingly vivid, the threads of time threaten to unravel.

Translated by Polly Barton