March Was Made of Yarn

"March Was Made of Yarn is an important book which brings together translations of short stories about the Triple Disaster (earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown at Fukushima), or ‘3.11’ in Japan. The anthology represents an attempt to consider how Japan and the world have changed – and will continue to change – as a result of these dramatic events. One of my favourite stories in the anthology is Hiromi Kawakami’s ‘God Bless You, 2011’. It is a reworking of a short story completely unrelated to 3.11 that Kawakami published nearly twenty years earlier titled ‘God Bless You’. The original version of the story addresses how norms of behaviour and tradition have changed in modern Japanese society. After 3.11, Kawakami, like many other writers at the time, was faced with the challenge of how to respond appropriately to the disaster. She decided to rewrite one of her best-known short stories to suit a post-3.11 reality. The modifications she makes to the narrative are subtle but significant; not much changes in the narrative structure or the plot itself, yet everything is different. The narrative has very few markers that place the action in Japan, which extends its relevance to everyone living in a post-nuclear world. The name ‘3.11’ has been adopted in part because of its syntactic similarity with 9/11 , but importantly, Hideo Furukawa, who has written extensively about the disaster, has suggested that the term is problematic. He argues that the disaster is ongoing, and as such, it should not be historicised with labels such as ‘3.11’. For many people in Japan, life has returned to normal after March 11, 2011, but others have been permanently displaced, their daily lives fundamentally altered as a result of the disaster. In the Tōhoku region the reconstruction effort continues, and some towns will never be fully rebuilt or repopulated. I fear that there is an impetus to forget about the disaster, particularly as we approach the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, as Japan as a nation is keen to reassert its relevance in an ever-changing global climate. I worry that a form of ‘Olympic amnesia’ will set in as Japan looks to its future rather than dwelling on tragic events in its recent past. There are those, such as anti-nuclear activist Ruiko Mutō, who are working to keep Fukushima and 3.11 at the centre of discourse. March Was Made of Yarn reminds us of the necessity of remembering."