A thoughtful, illuminating exploration of modern Japanese politics and culture through the eyes of an investigative reporter Dreux Richard presents post-Fukushima Japan in three illustrative parts. He follows members of Japan's Nigerian community, who have been affected by Japan's flawed and exploitative visa system. He surveys the northernmost town in Japan, which is rapidly depopulating as its residents age and die. And he takes us into the offices of nuclear regulatory officials who cannot agree on the parameters of their own earthquake fault review, which will determine whether the nation's riskiest reactors will be allowed to restart. Richard's perceptive and probing reporting establishes him as an authority on his subjects, but he remains aware of his status as an outsider and interpreter for his readers. The personal elements in his subjects' stories as well as his own expatriate perspective provide a distinctive understanding of today's Japan that goes far beyond politics, truisms, and sensational arguments.
A thoughtful, illuminating exploration of modern Japanese politics and culture through the eyes of an investigative reporter Dreux Richard presents post-Fukushima Japan in three illustrative parts. He follows members of Japan's Nigerian community, whose struggles with a hostile immigration system lead to the death of a Nigerian immigrant in a Japanese detention center, investigated here for the first time. In Japan's northernmost city, Richard goes door to door with the region's youngest census employee, meeting the city's elderly residents and documenting the stories that comprise the nation's record-breaking population decline. Finally, he takes us into the offices of energy executives and nuclear regulators, as they fight to determine whether reactors threatened by earthquake faults will be permitted to restart after the Fukushima disaster, a conflict that brings the entire regulatory system to the brink of collapse. Six years in the making, Richard's perceptive and probing account establishes him as an authority on his subjects, but he remains aware of his status as an outsider and interpreter for his readers. His long-term engagement with the personal lives of his sources revives the expatriate literary tradition of Lafcadio Hearn and Donald Richie, bringing its best qualities into a century where forensic investigation of wrongdoing and compassionate observation of its consequences are equally crucial. Through an exceptional ran