In the immediate years of postwar Japan, we follow the exploits of two children as they traverse the country by train. Through the children we experience the horrors of postwar Japan. Interspersed throughout are newspaper clippings of serial killers, packs of wild dogs attacking and killing humans, and boats sinking with hundreds of passengers aboard after running into mines never retrieved from the water. It makes for compelling reading on what war-torn Japan was like, and it could be used in history classes as well as literature classes. Laughing Wolf won the 2001 Osaragi Jiro Prize and was selected by the Japanese Literature Publishing Project (JLPP), an initiative of the Agency of Cultural Affairs of Japan.

Translated by: Dennis Washburn