Recent Entries

On the inspiration for the three characters who confront depression and suicide (Nao, her father and her late great-uncle, a kamikaze pilot)

"I was doing a lot of reading about the problem of teenage suicide, and not just teenage suicide but middle-aged suicide, too, especially middle-aged men in Japan. And this, I think, coincided with reading that I was doing. There was this book that came out called Kamikaze, Cherry Blossoms and Nationalisms and it was a collection, a study of the diaries of the kamikaze pilots who had been conscripted from Japan's top universities. So these were the young, bright minds of Japan, and these men, these young men, were beautiful writers. And they wrote these just heartbreaking letters and diaries. ...

"Many of them did not want to participate in this at all but, you know, the situation was hopeless — there was no option for conscientious objection, for example — so they were forced into this, accompanied by an enormous amount of angst. And so I think the idea for those three characters came from this reading and studying that I was doing."

On the cultural connections between Japan and the U.S.

"I've lived in Japan for many years. It's a culture that I know well and that I love dearly. One of the things that I've noticed is that very often cultural trends in Japan tend to surface in America several years later. So when I first started reading about bullying in Japan, I thought, 'Wow ... I wonder if this is also going to be one of those situations where several years later it appears in the States.' And sure enough that's exactly what happened. We're not immune to that here. So, you know, in that sense, this was a story that is a universal one."

Read an excerpt of A Tale for the Time Being