Review | From Hiroshima to Fukushima, Yuko Tsushima’s novel Wildcat Dome is strangely riveting
Now in English translation, Yuko Tsushima’s novel explores radiation, racism and personal conflict against a backdrop of nuclear disaster
Japan’s three historic nuclear events – the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the closing days of World War II and the 2011 nuclear plant meltdowns in Fukushima – form a key backdrop for Wildcat Dome, a novel by Yuko Tsushima.
Lisa Hofmann-Kuroda’s English translation of the book by the Kawabata and Tanizaki awards-winning writer is now out from Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and goes on sale this month.
As befits its catastrophic theme, the writing rambles – although intentionally and in a delightfully mesmerising style – meandering from a description of a scene to a dialogue, only to be interrupted by a sound, an image or an action, like memories of a dream or nightmare.
Among the main characters are children born to Japanese women and American servicemen, who grow up in an orphanage. They embody the human costs of war, and the suffering of living in a discriminatory society.
The layering of the subplots involving radiation and racism, as well as personal conflict, leads always to the big question: why?