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Sanaka Hiiragi (author), Jesse Kirkwood (translator), The Lantern of Lost Memories, Picador, 2024. 224 pgs.

What if, when you die, someone greets you with drinks and snacks, briefing you about your own demise? Sanaka Hiiragi invites readers to experience such surreal episodes in her novel The Lantern of Lost memories. The work, originally published in the Japanese in 2019, has been translated by Jesse Kirkwood, who is credited with several well-regarded translations including Seicho Matsumoto’s Tokyo Express and Hisashi Kashiwai’s The Kamogawa Food Detectives.

In the novel, in the space between the living and the dead, Mr. Hirasaka holds a “staging post” and guides people to their journey after death. But there’s a ritual to be followed which requires Hirasaka’s guests to reminisce about their former earthly existence. It is said that in the moments preceding your last breath, the memories of your life time flash past your eyes like a reel. And the post-death ritual seems to be rooted in this premise. In Hirasaka’s photo studio, the departed souls are presented with a collection of moments captured from their lifetime. They are asked to glean through the photographs and select the best photos from their lives—one for every year they’ve lived. These carefully cherry-picked pictures of treasured moments are then placed and spun on a beautiful Japanese lantern. Once the souls see the precious moments of their lives whirring past, they are escorted to the afterlife.

Hirasaka’s guests have varied reactions to their first rendezvous—disbelief, shock, regret, resentment, an outpouring of raw emotions. Although a few evolved ones process the situation with patient acceptance, others experience disbelief, shock, regret, or resentment. Ironically, the protagonist has no memories of his own, yet helps others capture their most valuable moments in a time travel journey of sorts.

Through three different characters, their stories and journeys to their priceless memories, Hiiragi portrays the universal human experience of love, loss and suffering. There are moments of reflection, valuable life lessons and also an insight into Japanese society and history. A lady from post-war Japan narrates the plight of people in the wake of the second world war—chaos, ravaged infrastructure, unemployment, scarcity of resources among a myriad of other social problems. It took Herculean efforts to rebuild the community and nation in those testing times. Another man with allegiance to the dreaded Yakuza gangs spices up the drama with a flavour of the Japanese underbelly. There are characters in their personal narratives who make their lives meaningful despite the challenges life presents from time to time. One can be hurt by close family but saved by complete strangers. And the novel captures it all with warmth and the keen sensitivity of the author, who also happens to be a camera enthusiast.

Each episode in the novel makes us brood over the meaning and purpose of life. Does one really need to be successful and famous to claim that it was a life well lived, or a decent life and death suffice? What about those who are simply unlucky to be caught in the wrong place at the wrong time—what would life mean to them? Or would your life mean nothing at all if you had no memories to look back to? There are no straightforward answers. However, the lady in the novel would sagaciously say, “I hope you find what you’re looking for.” Dear reader, here’s hoping that the warm glow of The Lantern of Lost memories helps you find the light inside yourself.

How to cite: Yadav, Aditi. “Between the Living and the Dead: Sanaka Hiiragi’s The Lantern of Lost Memories.” Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, 29 Nov. 2024, chajournal.blog/2024/11/29/lost-memories.

Aditi Yadav is an amateur writer and translator from India. She is also a South Asia Speaks fellow (2023). Her works can be found in, among other places, Rain Taxi, The Punch Magazine, Usawa Literary Review, Gulmohur Quarterly, Borderless Journal, and the Remnant Archive. [All contributions by Aditi Yadav.]

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