A Man with No Talents: Memoirs of a Tokyo Day Laborer

In Tokyo's San'ya district, day laborers live in crowded, smelly bunkhouses (doya) and rise early each morning to visit the San'ya Welfare Recruiting Office, where the competition is fierce for backbreaking work that pays paltry wages. Oyama (a pseudonym), a college graduate who dropped out of the corporate world at age 40, lived in San'ya for 12 years, six of them during the 1980s ""bubble economy"" and six after its collapse. At some point, he began writing down his experiences, and submitted his manuscript to a competition ""as a lark."" He won, but declined to attend the award ceremony, and continues to live on the streets of Tokyo, albeit in a different neighborhood. He has a self-described ""inability to interact with other people,"" and translator Fowler acknowledges that even among day laborers, Oyama is particularly eccentric. But the narrative here is generally strong and engaging. To those interested in Japanese culture, this book will surely be an intriguing look at an obscure aspect of the culture.