“To be homeless is to be ignored when people walk past while still being in full view of everyone.”

Tokyo Ueno Station, a speculative historical fiction written by Akutagawa-award-winning author Yū Miri is a tragic tale in every sense of the word. The book being set in 1950 post world war II Japan, deals with the struggles of a fallen working class and those left behind during the reconstruction of the nation’s fractured economy. 

The book centers around the life of Kazu as he reflects on his life choices and events as a ghost, haplessly drifting through time in preponderance of his many regrets. From searing horrors and guilt of the firebombing of Tokyo, to his failed foray into the world of fatherhood. In his misery being forced into homelessness, residing across from the titular Tokyo Ueno Station.

As he drifts from memory to memory in an endless branching description of his life’s story to what he has done to what he hasn’t, to what he wishes to have been able to provide to his poverty stricken family; we get to see a picture of homelessness that I have not yet seen in any novel I have read. The tragedy and humanity that Yū Miri portrays in every word about the realities of homelessness, and the stigmas that come with it, will change your worldview forever.