Erika Kobayashi: Trinity, Trinity, Trinity

Montreal's oldest English-language independent bookstore, serving the local community of writers and readers since 1966. Under new ownership since summer 2017, the shop has been renovated and updated, with (among other things) a dedicated section for Japanese books, both owners having previously lived in Japan as JET Programme participants.

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Japanese author Erika Kobayashi and translator Brian Bergstrom discuss Kobayashi's latest literary thriller TRINITY, TRINITY, TRINITY.

Join us as we welcome Japanese author Erika Kobayashi, and her translator Brian Bergstrom, to discuss her newest novel Trinity, Trinity, Trinity! The virtual event, taking place on Thursday August 25th at 7 PM Eastern, is free and captioned. All are welcome; RSVPs via Eventbrite are required. ABOUT THE BOOK:&quot;Delicately weaves generations of women to the lasting wounds of nuclear destruction and the hubris of war. A unique and unforgettable novel.&quot; —Kali Fajardo-Anstine, author of Woman of LightA literary thriller about the effects of nuclear power on the mind, body, and recorded history of three generations of Japanese women.Nine years after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster, Japan is preparing for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. An unnamed narrator wakes up in a cold, sterile room, unable to recall her past. Across the country, the elderly begin to hear voices emanating from black stones, compelling them to behave in strange and unpredictable ways. The voices are a symptom of a disease called “Trinity.”As details about the disease come to light, we encounter a thread of linked histories—Prometheus stealing fire from the gods, the discovery of radiation, the nuclear arms race, the subsequent birth of nuclear energy, and the disaster in Fukushima. The thread linking these events begins to unravel in the lead-up to a terrorist attack at the Japan National Olympic Stadium. A work of speculative fiction reckoning with the consequences of the past and continued effects of nuclear power, Trinity, Trinity, Trinity follows the lives of three generations of women as they grapple with the legacy of mankind&#x27;s quest for light and power.ABOUT OUR GUESTSErika Kobayashi is a novelist and visual artist based in Tokyo. History, memory, and radiation play an important role in her work. In her novels, Kobayashi traces the history of radiation via the lives of ordinary people over generations—particularly generations of women: mothers and daughters, grandmothers and granddaughters. Through her writing she wants to make the invisible visible, the unseen seen. Her novel Madame Curie to chōshoku o (Breakfast with Madame Curie), published in 2014 by Shueisha, was shortlisted for both the Mishima and the Akutagawa Prize. Her latest novel, the literary thriller Trinity, Trinity, Trinity (2019), about a terrorist attack on the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, examines the intertwined histories of the Olympics, fascism, and nuclear technologies. “Precious Stones” was included in the collection Kanojo wa kagami no naka o nozokikomu (She looks into the mirror), published by Shueisha in 2017. (Photo by Mie Morimoto)Brian Bergstrom is a lecturer and translator currently based in Montréal after living in Chicago, Kyoto, and Yokohama. He has worked over ten years as part of the East Asian Studies Department at McGill University and has published academically on Japanese literature and culture in the journals Mechademia, positions: asia critique, and Japan Forum. His translations include the collection We, the Children of Cats by Tomoyuki Hoshino (PM Press), longlisted for the 2013 Best Translated Book Award, and the children’s book Animals Brag About Their Bottoms by Maki Saito (Greystone Kids, 2020). His other translations have appeared in venues such as Granta, Asymptote, Aperture, The Penguin Book of Japanese Short Stories (2018), and For Dignity, Justice, and Revolution: An Anthology of Japanese Proletarian Literature (2016). His translation of Trinity, Trinity, Trinity by Erika Kobayashi came out from Astra House Books in June of 2022, and his translation of Kobayashi&#x27;s collection Sunrise: Radiant Stories will be published in 2023, also by Astra House. (Photo by Toma Iczkovits)

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Erika Kobayashi: Trinity, Trinity, Trinity

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