Japanese Literature Challenge 2026

I read this for the Japanese Literature Challenge 19.

A Man – Keiichiro Hirano

In this 2018 novel, the titular man lives under someone else's name and identity. Using that alias, he marries a divorced woman and leads a happy life in provincial Japan, but after he dies in a logging accident, his widow discovers he was using a false identity.

The story unfolds as the widow and her Tokyo lawyer explore the mystery of who her husband really was. The plot explores some deep questions, such as the adequacy of pessimism as a general guide to life; the formation of identity through ageing, trauma and memory; and the fear of death versus death’s inevitability making mundane life sweeter (or not: "Stop whatever you're doing for a moment and ask yourself: Am I afraid of death because I won't be able to do this anymore?” asks Marcus Aurelius).

Hirano’s lawyer hero is a middle-aged guy with existential anxiety. Hirano also refers to the music in the background, from Billy Preston in the 1970s to Japanese pop stars. These tendencies will make us hardcore readers call to mind Haruki Murakami. However, Hirano is more interior and philosophical, probing how identity is constructed and performed in a social milieu. Hirano’s people are seeking clarity about their own authenticity so they can fulfill their obligations to other people. Murakami's people are intentionally opaque, blank, or emotionally flattened and they drift rather than evolve.

This story seems highly promising, but it's actually a bit haphazard. The reveal unfolds too slowly and the flashbacks don't seem deftly structured. The pseudo-private detective lawyer solves the mystery not through investigative methods or clever deductive reasoning or a dramatic confession, but through sheer chance.

Nevertheless, it's a fairly enjoyable story. The central themes of identity and trauma are present throughout. Hirano makes heartening points about the solace of reading serious fiction. Hirano skillfully captures the way powerful emotions make themselves known in the body, which readers into mindfulness meditation will connect with. He provides informative digressions about how an event like the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011 challenges a sclerotic Japanese bureaucracy to make more difficult the lives of vulnerable people in need of help.