The Sheltering Rain

A diverse cross-section of Japan passes through the bar Lui, and the bartender tends to them all, with all their hopes and their fears. Underneath the black suits--whether crumpled or designer--and the cosmetics, they're all people on the way to somewhere else in Tokyo's glittering boom era. The bartenders and Mama-sans who keep everything running smoothly rely on their own camaraderie, night after night. Winner of the 1975 Naoki Prize. Amayadori (雨やどり) originally appeared as a series of short stories in various magazines from 1973-74, later compiled into this book as Amayadori, with the subtitle "Shinjuku baka monogatari," which could be roughly translated as "Tales of Shinjuku naifs." Written while Japan was close to the peak of the post-War economic boom, Hanmura captures the "economic animals" of Japan, and the countless men and women in their periphery who kept the bars and cabarets running all night long to let them blow off steam. Japan of the 21st century is vastly different, and Hanmura's depiction of a very different era is still popular among those who fondly remember "the way it used to be." While the settings have changed and smartphones provide new modes of interaction, the same archetypical salesmen, bartenders, and bargirls still haunt the night spots of Tokyo, searching for something better.

About the Author :
Hanmura Ryō (pseudonym of Kiyono Heitarō, 1933-2002), born in Tokyo's Katsushika Ward, spent thirty years moving from job to job, including manning reception desks at love hotels and bartending in cabarets. He debuted as an author in 1962, but was little heard-from until 1971, when his Seiun Award-winning novel Ishi no Ketsumyaku (Veins of Stone) reintroduced him as a pioneer in the denki shōsetsu subgenre of dark, often historically based fantasy. In 1975, he became the first SF author to win the Naoki Prize, with this non-SF novel. Throughout the 1970s, he produced new works at a furious pace, and continued writing SF, fantasy, and historical novels until 2001, earning the Nihon SF Taishō Award in 1988 and the Shibata Renzaburō Prize in 1993. Jim Hubbert is a translator of Japanese based in Tokyo. His translations include works by Miyabe Miyuki, Ueda Sayuri, Project Itoh, and Ogawa Issui. Torontonian Johnny Wales has lived off and on (mostly on) in Japan since his first trip there in 1975. Johnny is an illustrator, sculptor, animator and, well, lets just say he is always making things. He and his wife Chieko and their pooch Kyla live in an old farmhouse on Sado Island in the Sea of Japan.