The End of August

A multi-generational, multilingual epic by the bestselling author of Tokyo Ueno Station

In the 1930s, Lee Woo-chul’s talent as a runner leads him to be selected for the upcoming Tokyo Olympics – but with Korea under Japanese occupation, he will have to run with the Rising Sun on his chest. In the present day, his granddaughter Yu Miri researches her family history as she attempts to write a novel chronicling their story, seeking to channel and commune with her grandfather by participating in Korean shamanic rituals and training to run a marathon herself.

Shifting between Japan and Korea, the past and the present, The End of August is an investigation into the nature of identity, as well as a semi-autobiographical family saga illuminating the experiences of Japan’s Zainichi (second- and third- generation Korean) communities.

A Japanese author of Korean descent, Yu Miri is the winner of Japan’s most prestigious literary prize, the Akutagawa, and several of her novels have been bestsellers, including the National Book Award-winning Tokyo Ueno Station. After the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, she relocated to Fukushima, the site of the disaster, where she currently hosts a radio show interviewing survivors.

Born in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains in Kentucky, Morgan Giles is a literary translator based in Tokyo. She graduated from Indiana University with a BA in Japanese Language and Linguistics in 2009 before moving to London.

Source: publisher’s website

(Published in the US by Penguin Random House)