Mai Ishizawa – författare

In the summer of 2020, as Europe is beginning to open back up after the first phase of the pandemic, a young Japanese woman based in the German city of Göttingen is working on a PhD about the iconography of medieval saints. She waits at the train station to meet her old friend from graduate school, Nomiya, who died nine years earlier in the 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster in Japan, but has suddenly reemerged without any explanation.When Nomiya arrives, the narrator guides him through Göttingen’s scale model of the solar system, talking about her studies, her roommate and their mutual friends. Yet it isn’t long before his spectral presence in the city begins to fray the narrator’s psyche and destabilize the world beyond: eerie discoveries are made in the forest, Pluto begins disappearing and reappearing, and snags run in time’s fabric. The narrative continues to spiral and unfold to include the Japanese physicist Terada Torahiko, mysteriously sprouting teeth, Saint Lucia, all set against the ever-lingering presence of death.With a literary style reminiscent of W. G. Sebald, Yoko Tawada, and Yu Miri, The Place of Shells is a hypnotic, poetic novel that explores the ebbing and flowing of memory, its physical manifestations, its strange and sudden metaphors, and the overwhelming stranglehold of trauma.

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 DaysAt 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.

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 DaysIn the summer of 2020, as Germany slowly emerges from lockdown, a young Japanese woman studying in Göttingen waits at the train station to meet an old friend. Nomiya died a decade earlier in the Tōhoku tsunami, but he has suddenly returned without any explanation.The reunited friends share a past that's a world away from the tranquillity of Göttingen. Yet Nomiya's spectral presence 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.With a literary style reminiscent of W. G. Sebald, Yoko Tawada, and Yu Miri, The Place of Shells is an astounding exploration of the strange orbits of memory and the haunting presence of the past.