06/2020 A Man, by Keiichirō Hirano

[Carol]

Let's use this thread for our discussion of A Man by Keiichirō Hirano.



Published by Amazon Crossing with a release date of tomorrow, 1June, A Man was the winner of Japan’s prestigious Yomiuri Prize for Literature,

Here's a link to the author's own website.

https://en.k-hirano.com/

A review published today at The Art Desk:

https://theartsdesk.com/books/keiichi...

anyone interested in joining the discussion is welcome. I'll probably start reading Tuesday or Wednesday, depending on when I finish the book I'm reading now.

[Alison]

Thanks for suggesting Hirano Toshimitsu's A Man. I really enjoyed it. I think I may have expected more crime thrills and less introspection, but it was better as a slow-burn, meditative novel.

I wonder how often registry swapping happens. How often does it explain cases of the johatsu.

[Ian]

I have a book published a few years ago about disappearing people in Japan. It’s as much a book of photography as a research study, but was interesting. I think it was called Disappearing Japan but I’ll have to search for it later. It suggests that quite often the yakuza help people simply disappear and basically that works similar to the idea of register switching. There’s a neighborhood called Kamagasaki or Nishinari around me where such people are said to have been hidden, basically suggesting that the amount of homelessness and lawlessness and drunkenness in the area keeps the police at bay and too busy to worry about people not causing issues.

[Alison]

Ian wrote: "I have a book published a few years ago about disappearing people in Japan. It’s as much a book of photography as a research study, but was interesting. I think it was called Disappearing Japan but..."

It's called The Vanished: The "Evaporated People" of Japan in Stories and Photographs.

I wrote about the johatsu in A Man and Kawakami Hiromi's Manazuru if it would be of interest to anyone.

https://readjapaneseliterature.com/20...