Tokyo Ueno Station by Yu Miri {Riverhead Books)

Yu Miri’s Tokyo Ueno Station, originally published in Japanese in 2014 as JR 東京上野駅公園口 (JR Tokyo Ueno Eki Kouen Guchi) is set in modern Japan. It was published in English in 2020 by Morgan Giles and won the National Book Award for Translated Literature for that year as well. 

Kazu is dead, but it is through his eyes that we see the everyday comings and goings of people who live in or visit Ueno Park, one of Tokyo’s most popular public parks that houses many museums, shrines, and a zoological garden. As Kazu describes what he sees, he also talks about his own life and how he came to be homeless and living in the park. 

Kazu is philosophical from the beginning as he relates his story. “I used to think life was like a book: you turn the first page, and there’s the next, and as you go on turning page after page, eventually you reach the last one. But life is nothing like a story in a book. There may be words, and the pages may be numbered, but there is no plot. There may be an ending, but there is no end.”

Kazu was born in 1933 in Soma in Fukushima Prefecture. He is married to Setsuko and has a son and a daughter. In order to support his family, Kazu becomes a migrant laborer and goes to Tokyo to help with construction before the coming Summer Olympics which are to be held in Japan for the first time. 

After the Olympics, Kazu is sent to Sendai and continues to work as a migrant laborer to help pay for Koichi’s university tuition as he is studying to become a radiologist. His daughter got married and currently lives in Sendai as well. Kouichi had just passed his radiology exam but a few days later, Kazu receives a call from his wife informing him that their son has died. 

Tragedy seems to follow Kazu even after he returns to his hometown. Setsuko passes away at the age of sixty-five. His granddaughter Mari worries about him and suggests that Kazu come live with her but Kazu thinks it’s improper to live with a twenty-one year old woman and heads back to Tokyo. He leaves a note telling Mari not to come looking for him. 

The last station on the train line that Kazu takes ends at Ueno Station. This is where he has come to die but as he becomes one of the many homeless living in a tent village in Ueno Park and before he knows it, he has been living there for over five years. 

Tragedy strikes again when Kazu hears of the 9.0 magnitude earthquake which causes a tsunami that wiped out many towns along the coast of Northern Japan. One of the victims of the tsunami is his granddaughter Mari and her pet dog.After the sudden death of his only friend in Ueno Park, Kazu falls into despair and makes a grand decision that may shock the reader. 

Yu Miri writes about the harsh reality of the underside of Tokyo. She shows us what the government of Japan does not want to acknowledge. The invisible people, the marginalized, the homeless. She reminds us through the voice of Kazu that most homeless people do not choose to be homeless. We hear the voice of another homeless person saying, “I can’t believe I became homeless...Having passersby look at me like I’m something dirty…” We may feel the pain and agony of Kazu and wonder what direction we would have taken? ~Ernie Hoyt