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 T¿hoku
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 Days In 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 T¿hoku 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.
