The Place of Shells : 'An extraordinary, beautiful novel' Sarah Bernstein, Booker-shortlisted author of Study for Obedience

WINNER OF THE AKUTAGAWA PRIZE'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 DaysIn the summer of 2020, as Germany slowly emerges from lockdown, a young Japanese woman studying in Gottingen waits at the train station to meet an old friend.Nomiya died a decade earlier in the Tohoku tsunami, but he has suddenly returned without any explanation. The reunited friends share a past that's a world away from the tranquillity of Gottingen.Yet Nomiya's spectral presence destabilises something in the city: mysterious guests appear, eerie discoveries are made in the forest and, as the past becomes increas