**Kirkus Best Books of the Year (2013)**
**Kansas City Star Best Books of the Year (2013)**
A passionate student of Japanese poetry, theater, and art for much of her life, Gretel Ehrlich felt compelled to return to the earthquake-and-tsunami-devastated Tohoku coast to bear witness, listen to survivors, and experience their terror and exhilaration in villages and towns where all shelter and hope seemed lost. In an eloquent narrative that blends strong reportage, poetic observation, and deeply felt reflection, she takes us into the upside-down world of northeastern Japan, where nothing is certain and where the boundaries between living and dying have been erased by water.
The stories of rice farmers, monks, 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 to hand down a song that only she still remembered are both harrowing and inspirational. Facing death, facing life, and coming to terms with impermanence are equally compelling in a landscape of surreal desolation, as the ghostly specter of Fukushima Daiichi, the nuclear power complex, spews radiation into the ocean and air. Facing the Wave is a testament to the buoyancy, spirit, humor, and strong-mindedness of those who must find their way in a suddenly shattered world.
- Newly Added eBooks
- African American Fiction - eBooks
- Asian American Stories
- Domestic Thrillers - eBooks
- The End of the World as We Know It - eBooks
- Historical Romances - eBooks
- Horrible Reads: Gothic and Horror Fiction - eBooks
- Immigration and the Immigrant Experience - eBooks
- Into the Stars - eBooks
- LGBTQ Fiction - eBooks
- Memoirs - eBooks
- Mystery Series Starters - eBooks
- Native American Heritage - eBooks
- See all
- Newly Added Audiobooks
- Diverse Listening
- Listen to History - Fiction
- Listen to History - Nonfiction
- Memoirs Read by the Author
- Mysteries on Audio
- Page to Screen - Audio
- Reese's Book Club - Audiobooks
- Sci Fi Thrills - Audio
- Thinking about Racism - Audiobooks
- Try Something Different - Audio
- Women's Fiction - Audio
- See all