Description

A journey through memory and the landscape of Japan

Wandering through the landscape and the imaginary of Japan, Eliana Sousa Santos and Tiago Silva Nunes conclude that the only possible path is that of memory. This book brings together a set of essays they wrote on a journey through the archipelago in the «incredible month of rain», in the transition between spring and summer 2019. The physical description of places is interwoven with reminiscences of authors and literary, cinematic and architectural works crucial to defining Japanese cultural memory and imagery. Nature and disaster, memory and hope intersect in a journey through Japan's cultural history.

The authors begin in Tokyo, where they follow the paths of Haruki Murakami in Norwegian Wood, and explore the utopian proposals of the metabolist architects and the dystopian visions of Akira, between the end of the American occupation and the present. They continue through the arc of Sagami Bay, reflecting on representations of Japan along the Tokaido, a landscape populated by the imagery of Yasujiro Ozu, Hokusai and Hiroshi Sugimoto. They continue through the valleys of Kansai, with Sei Shonagon, exploring the religion and founding myths of Japan, between the shrine of Ise and the imperial court of the Heian period. They travel along the Seto Inland Sea, in the company of Alain Resnais, Ishiro Honda and King Naito, encountering the traces of technological progress and the trauma caused by the atomic bombs. Finally, they cross the Japanese Alps following Basho's «pilgrimage» to the «deep interior» and confront the environmental catastrophe in the imaginary of Yoko Tawada and Hayao Miyazaki.