The Place of Shells
‘A hypnotic dissection of memory, trauma and belonging’ New Statesman
‘This attempt to imprint upon humanity the experiences of the 2011 Tohoku 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
At a train station in Germany, a Japanese student meets an old friend. Nomiya died a decade earlier in the Tohoku tsunami, but he has suddenly returned.
The reunited friends share a past that’s a world away from the tranquility of Gottingen. Yet Nomiya’s arrival 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.