Four Seasons in Japan is one of the most moving, beautifully written books I’ve read in a long time. Author Nick Bradley’s evident knowledge and love of Japan mean he captures the culture perfectly. The characters at the heart of the book, Ayako and Kyo, leap off the page and leave you wanting to believe they are real people, still living their lives in their small town.
The premise of Four Seasons in Japan is a book within a book. Flo, an American living in Tokyo, is developing a career as a translator of Japanese books but is uninspired by her latest project. By chance, she finds a book called ‘Sound of Water’ on the metro. It’s by an author she’s never heard of, but the story instantly captivates and inspires her to start translating it.
Akayo and Kyo are the main characters in the Sound of Water. She lives in Onomichi, a small town in Hiroshima Prefecture, running a coffee shop that primarily serves regulars, as she doesn’t have much interest in new people. Ayako is a formidable character, not to be messed with, and she’s been charged with taking in her 19-year-old grandson Kyo while he studies to retake the medical school exams he failed. A failure he feels very keenly, as his mother is a doctor in Tokyo, where they live.
Four Seasons in Japan charts the evolving relationship between grandmother and grandson. She is hard on him initially, wanting to ensure his life is a success. Wanting to make sure she doesn’t repeat mistakes made with her son, Kyo’s father Kenji, who took his own life.
Kyo knows little about his father, but desperately wants to. He’s initially terrified of Ayako, but over the four seasons that the book’s sections are broken into, they learn to live together and to respect, love and trust one another. Alongside this evolution, we get to know some of the people who frequent Akayo’s cafe and get an insight into the town and the mountain it sits at the base of. A mountain that Akayo has a history with.
Interspersed with their story, some chapters of Four Seasons in Japan check back in on Flo. She’s in love with the book she’s found, but can’t publish the translation without the author’s permission. The need for that brings her to Onomichi, hoping that she’ll find not just the elusive author, but the real people who inspired the book.
I visited Japan last year, including the cities of Osaka and Hiroshima, both of which are included in Four Seasons in Japan. Reading it brought back such fond memories, as did the descriptions of Japanese culture that I observed. But this book is a love letter to life in a much smaller, more rural place and means that Onomichi is now firmly on the list for my next trip to Japan.
I bought my copy of Four Seasons in Japan from the Oxfam bookshop in Kingston upon Thames. The charity is the biggest retailer of secondhand books in Europe and has a number of dedicated bookshops. All of the regular Oxfam stores also sell books, including the one where I work as a book volunteer. You might also find it in your local library, or you could try Oxfam’s online store.
For more book reviews, visit the Books section of my blog. And if you’re interested in my travels in Japan, check the Asia section of my blog.