Research Catalog

Title

• Facing the wave : a journey in the wake of the tsunami / Gretel Ehrlich.

Author

Ehrlich, Gretel

Publication

New York : Pantheon Books, c2013.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

224 p. : map; 22 cm.

Summary

A passionate student of Japanese poetry, theater, and art for much of her life, Gretel Ehrlich felt compelled to return to the earthquake-and-tsunami-devastated Tohoku coast to bear witness, listen to survivors, and experience their terror and exhilaration in villages and towns where all shelter and hope seemed lost. In an eloquent narrative that blends strong reportage, poetic observation, and deeply felt reflection, she takes us into the upside-down world of northeastern Japan, where nothing is certain and where the boundaries between living and dying have been erased by water. The stories of rice farmers, monks, and wanderers; of fishermen who drove their boats up the steep wall of the wave; and of an eighty-four-year-old geisha who survived the tsunami to hand down a song that only she still remembered are both harrowing and inspirational. Facing death, facing life, and coming to terms with impermanence are equally compelling in a landscape of surreal desolation, as the ghostly specter of Fukushima Daiichi, the nuclear power complex, spews radiation into the ocean and air. Facing the Wave is a testament to the buoyancy, spirit, humor, and strong-mindedness of those who must find their way in a suddenly shattered world.

Subject

• 2011
• Disaster victims > Tōhoku Region
• Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami, Japan, 2011
• Tsunami damage > Tōhoku Region
• Tsunami relief > Tōhoku Region

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

• June : Uncle Kazuyoshi -- Radiation news -- Every cove -- Ishinomaki -- At Ishinomaki where Matsuo Bashō once wrote a poem -- Ookawa Elementary School -- Night -- Shodo Harada Roshi's newsletter -- Three temples : Zenoji -- Ikoji -- Shounji -- Night -- The van -- Two waves -- Radiation news -- Mushiatsui -- Miyako -- Hirayama Masayuki : the idle blog of a fisherman -- North Miyako Bay -- On the road again -- All sentient beings -- Abyss-san's mountain home -- Shunyata -- Volunteering -- Evening ash -- Islands in the streams of story -- Mori -- An apprentice shaman -- Nobiru -- Night -- Sorrow -- Hirayama's blog -- Radiation news
• September : September 11 -- Ishinomaki and the river -- Autumn equinox -- Great-Uncle and Great-Aunt -- Sendai -- Kayuko, Grandmother, and Kazuyoshi -- Great-Uncle Satoru and Great-Aunt Satsuko -- Typhoon, or an ocean of the streams of story -- Hirayama's blog -- After the typhoon -- Hirayama's blog -- Floating Island and the Fukushima
• December : December -- Miyako -- Abyss-san's mountain home -- Ito-San, the geisha -- Ofunato -- Rikuzentakata -- Abyss-san's curry recipe -- Radiation news -- Hirayama's blog -- Ocean -- Morning sun -- Shounji -- On the road again -- Ikoji -- Epilogue

ISBN

• 9780307907318 (hbk.)
• 0307907317

LCCN

^^2012020400

OCLC

794359167

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library