Oda, Makoto

Tokyo. 1990. Kodansha. 1st American Edition. Very Good in Dustjacket. 0870119818. Translated from the Japanese by D. H. Whittaker. 217 pages. hardcover. Jacket illustration is a detail from 'Genius Ioci' by Edgar Ende. keywords: Literature Translated Japan Asia . FROM THE PUBLISHER - In his debut in English, novelist and internationally known activist Makoto Oda offers us one of the most profound and timely works of imaginative fiction to emerge from postwar Japan. Within its impressionistic framework exists a universe of people of different racial and ethnic backgrounds - American Indians, whites, blacks, Japanese, Koreans - all affected by the desecration of social order and the environment symbolized by the first atomic bomb. The novel takes place against a constantly changing canvas of time and place. It begins in and around a small Southwestern town in the 1940s, when an Indian tribe is thrown off sacred tribal land because of a secret government project. Later the scene shifts to the war zone in the Pacific and to the city of Hiroshima, and then many years later to a surrealistic cancer ward and a stunning. apocalyptic finale. The book is an eloquent passion play, powerful as only a deeply felt work of art can be, about a torment that transcends people, place, and time, threatening the devastation of family, culture, even the world itself, with only the barest hint of redemption. At the same time, it is a battle cry for all those committed to resist that destruction. inventory #22331 ISBN: 0870119818.