Author | Yū Miri |
---|---|
Original title | JR Ueno-Eki Kōenguchi (JR上野駅公園口) |
Translator | Morgan Giles |
Language | Japanese |
Set in | Tokyo |
Publisher | Kawade Shobō Shinsha |
Publication date | 2014 |
Publication place | Japan |
Published in English | 2019 |
Awards | National Book Award for Translated Literature (2020) |
Tokyo Ueno Station (Japanese: JR上野駅公園口, Hepburn: JR Ueno-Eki Kōenguchi) is a 2014 novel by Zainichi Korean author Yū Miri.
The novel reflects the author's engagement with historical memory and margins by incorporating themes of a migrant laborer from northeastern Japan and his work on Olympic construction sites in Tokyo, as well as the 11 March 2011 disaster.[1] In November 2020, Tokyo Ueno Station won the National Book Award for Translated Literature for the English translation by translator Morgan Giles.[2][3]
In its starred review, Kirkus Reviews called it Yu's "more restrained and mature novel" and praised her fusion of "personal and national history."[4]
Lauren Elkin of The Guardian wrote that the novel "most effectively conveys its concerns through dense layers of narrative, through ambiguity rather than specific fates."[5]