cover image Sacred Cesium Ground and Isa’s Deluge: Two Novellas of Japan’s 3/11 Disaster

Sacred Cesium Ground and Isa’s Deluge: Two Novellas of Japan’s 3/11 Disaster

Kimura Yusuke, trans. from the Japanese by Doug Slaymaker. Columbia Univ., $20 (160p) ISBN 978-0-231-18943-9

The perseverance and anger of survivors of the 2011 tsunami and subsequent nuclear meltdown that devastated the Tohoku region of Japan unites this pair of strident novellas from Kimura, a native of the area. In “Sacred Cesium Ground,” Nishino volunteers at a ranch whose owner, Sendo, has refused the government’s order to slaughter his irradiated cattle. Nishino wonders whether all she is doing is prolonging the cows’ suffering, but Sendo persists, explaining, “I am not gonna allow it to be as though this never was.” In “Isa’s Deluge,” Shoji is preoccupied with dreams of his uncle Isa, a nursing home–bound former fisherman infamous for his drunkenness and violence, particularly “the wounds inflicted in onboard knife fights.” The stories about Isa that his family tells Shoji convinces him that his uncle is a reincarnation of an Emishi, a medieval warrior from one of the region’s proudly independent tribes. Though Kimura’s agenda forces his storytelling into a supporting role, each novella offers a persuasive alternative to the trite cry of “Ganbare Nippon; together we can beat this, Japan!” that spread after the disasters. Nishino contemplates remaining at the farm forever, while Shoji imagines leading a violent assault on Tokyo; however divergent, each character’s reaction feels authentic to the suffering of Tohoku. (Jan.)