Christopher Ross

Memoirs of a Gaijin

Atomic Sushi

By

Alma Books 217pp £12.99 order from our bookshop

Unless I missed it, there is no overt explanation why Simon May decided to title his year-in-Japan memoir Atomic Sushi. He likes sushi and gets to eat some top-notch Tokyo fish, until he spots a rat in the restaurant, fails to conceal his shock, and causes the master chef to lose face and ban his gaijin gourmand henceforth. He visits Hiroshima and its Peace Park and muses about its monuments to the victims of atomic bombs dropped on Japan and the theme of peace as a shibboleth. Some combination of liking fish then and disliking the bomb? 

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