In a near-future where the old live almost-forever and the rest die young, an elderly man fights to keep his beloved great-grandson alive
Yoshiro celebrated his hundredth birthday many years ago, but every morning before work he still goes running in the park with his rent-a-dog. He is one of the many aged-elderly in Japan and he might, he thinks, live forever. Life for Yoshiro isn't as simple as it used to be. Pollution and natural disasters have scarred the face of the Earth, and even common foods are hard to come by. Still, Yoshiro's only real worry is the future of his great-grandson Mumei, who, like other children of his generation, was born frail and grey-haired, old before he was ever young. As daily life in Tokyo grows harder, a secretive organisation embarks on an audacious plan to find a cure for the children of Japan - might Yoshiro's great-grandson, Mumei, be the key? A dreamlike story of filial love and glimmering hope, The Last Children of Tokyo is a delicate glimpse of our future from one of Japan's most celebrated writers.
'The Last Children of Tokyo has a recessive, lunar beauty… Arresting, with a flickering brilliance' ----International New York Times
'The Last Children of Tokyo is both unsettling and enchanting, gentle and sharp-edged. Tawada writes beautifully about unbearable things' - Sara Baume, author of A Line Made by Walking
'Yoko Tawada's The Last Children of Tokyo carries us beyond the limits of what is it is to be human, in order to remind us of what we must hold dearest in our conflicted world, our humanity' - SJON, author of From the Mouth of the Whale
