“A tender tribute to grief and what it teaches us. Healing is not linear, and the ones we lose never truly leave us…. The phone booth is a magical place that not only connects the living to the dead but also the living to the living.”
— BookPage
Join the Club, Buy the Book
For its Spring reading selection, J-Sei Virtual Book Club observes the tenth year following the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami that devastated northeast Japan. We’ll be reading a newly released novel about the Tohoku disaster and its aftermath, offering a meditation on survival, loss, and hope. The US edition is scheduled for release on March 9, and copies are available for purchase from Eastwind Books at the discounted price of $22.50. Order the book online through Eastwind and either pick up your copy at the store, arrange for shipping, or designate J-Sei for delivery/pick-up in the comments.
Book Club Format: Read the book at your own pace. As you’re reading, you can comment online about whatever strikes you and share with fellow Book Club members on the secure J-Sei Book Club webpage. Questions and cues will also be provided in the webspace to initiate possible discussion threads. After several weeks, we’ll schedule a live Zoom meeting so members can meet to discuss the book. Sign up for the Book Club and be added to the Book Club mailing list.
J-Sei Book Club Pick: The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World by Laura Imai Messina, translated by Lucy Rand
On March 11, 2011, a massively powerful earthquake occurred off the northeast coast of the island of Honshu, Japan. It triggered a tsunami that caused unspeakable death and destruction, killing more than 15,000 people, with an additional estimated 2,500 missing and 228,000 displaced. Years later, survivors and families continue to deal with trauma and loss. In THE PHONE BOOTH AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD, Yui and Takeshi meet at a phone box located in a garden at the top of a hill in Otsuchi, Iwate Prefecture, where the grieving can talk on a disconnected rotary phone and send messages to their lost loved ones. The novel follows Yui and Takeshi as they navigate their grief and lives after tragedy.
Inspired by the actual kaze no denwa (“phone of the wind”), the novel explores death, grief, survival—and hope for the future. Join J-Sei Book Club and connect with fellow book lovers as we read this gentle Japanese story together.
About the Author and Translator
Laura Imai Messina was born and raised in Rome, Italy. In 2006 she moved to Tokyo and earned master’s and doctorate degrees from Tokyo University. A novelist and blogger in Italian, Messina has made her English-language publishing debut with The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World. She lives in Kamakura with her Japanese husband and children.
Lucy Rand is a British writer and translator who lived for a time in Japan translating pharmaceutical texts. One of her first literary projects was translating Quel che affidiamo al vento from Italian into The Phone Box at the Edge of the World, the UK edition that was published in 2020 and was then adapted for US publication in 2021.