By Gretel Ehrlich
A passionate scholar of eastern poetry, theater, and paintings for a lot of her existence, Gretel Ehrlich felt pressured to come to the earthquake-and-tsunami-devastated Tohoku coast to endure witness, hearken to survivors, and adventure their terror and excitement in villages and cities the place all defend and wish appeared misplaced. In an eloquent narrative that blends powerful reportage, poetic statement, and deeply felt mirrored image, she takes us into the upside-down international of northeastern Japan, the place not anything is sure and the place the limits among dwelling and death were erased by means of water.
The tales of rice farmers, priests, and wanderers; of fishermen who drove their boats up the steep wall of the wave; and of an eighty-four-year-old geisha who survived the tsunami handy down a track that in simple terms she nonetheless remembered are either harrowing and inspirational. dealing with dying, dealing with existence, and coming to phrases with impermanence are both compelling in a panorama of surreal desolation, because the ghostly specter of Fukushima Daiichi, the nuclear energy advanced, spews radiation into the sea and air. Facing the Wave is a testomony to the buoyancy, spirit, humor, and strong-mindedness of these who needs to locate their manner in a unexpectedly shattered global.
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