Work

Lawyer Kido is contacted with an odd request by a client, who lost her beloved child and husband in swift succession before discovering that her husband was not who she thought he was.

When Kido begins his investigation, his sympathy for the puzzling man is slowly revealed and his own identity is deeply shaken. Continuing the theme of “the past can be changed” present in his previous works, the struggles and hope of modern lives are delicately depicted and deep in philosophical implications in this touching book.

Hirano gazes kindly at adults at the mercy of the past and at children who try to live in the future. This piece de resistance, a winner of the Yomiuri Prize for Literature, symbolizes Hirano’s fourth period.