Backlight

This thought-provoking and intriguing tale, by the Akutagawa Prize-nominated master short story writer Kanji Hanawa, revolves around the extraordinary real story of the seven-year-old boy who went missing in the bear-inhabited forests of northern Japan for six whole days in 2016, after his parents had apparently abandoned him as a punishment.

In Backlight, a child is left alone at the side of a road in the mountains of Hokkaido in northern Japan by his parents. When they return moments later, the boy is gone. Ishida, a Professor of Psychology is enlisted as part of the search team.

As days pass, the search goes on and the number of people involved reaches more than one thousand. Ishida and his colleagues assess, analyse and discuss mostly at a safe and comfortable distance, taking them on their own journey from theories concerning the whereabouts of the child, to the very heart of the Japanese psyche.

Backlight, translated by Richard Nathan, is a complex and challenging look at an unfolding emergency, a culture and a country.

Red Circle Minis: Original, Short and Compelling Reads

Backlight is part of Red Circle Minis, a series of short captivating books by Japan’s finest contemporary writers that brings the narratives and voices of Japan together as never before. Each book is a first edition written specifically for the series and is being published in English first. 

A former professor of French literature with an interest in human psychology and complex relationships, Hanawa's narratives expose the pressures and challenges of life in Japan. Hanawa is a master of the short story. He has written several hundred since he published his first collection, Garasu no natsu (Glass Summer) to critical acclaim in 1972. In 1962, after graduating from Tokyo University, where he studied French Literature, he spent several months in Paris, his only stay in the country to whose literature he has dedicated much of his life researching. Since retiring from academic life (having translated into Japanese 15 novels by some of France's most eminent authors and researching the works of the French poet Arthur Rimbaud), he now lives in Tokyo with his wife and son. He is at last completely free to dedicate himself to his real passion: writing short stories about life in ancient, modern and contemporary Japan. Two of his novellas have been shortlisted for the prestigious Akutagawa Prize.

Richard Nathan is a Director and Principal of Bosquet Capital and Co-Founder and Director of Red Circle Authors Limited. Prior to this he worked for Kyodo News, the international journal of science Nature and the international publisher Macmillan.