{"product_id":"trinity-trinity-trinity-isbn-9781662602108","title":"Trinity, Trinity, Trinity","description":"\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"Delicately weaves generations of women to the lasting wounds of nuclear destruction and the hubris of war. A unique and unforgettable novel.\" \u003cb\u003e—Kali Fajardo-Anstine, author of \u003ci\u003eWoman of Light\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA literary thriller about the effects of nuclear power on the mind, body, and recorded history of three generations of Japanese women.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNine 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.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs 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. \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eA work of speculative fiction reckoning with the consequences of the past and continued effects of nuclear power, \u003ci\u003eTrinity, Trinity, Trinity\u003c\/i\u003e follows the lives of three generations of women as they grapple with the legacy of mankind's quest for light and power.\u003cb\u003eCONTENTS\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003ePrologue\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eSUNRISE\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e8:00\u003cbr\u003e9:00\u003cbr\u003e9:30\u003cbr\u003e10:00\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eDAYTIME\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e12:00\u003cbr\u003e12:30\u003cbr\u003e13:00\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eSUNSET\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e14:00\u003cbr\u003e15:00\u003cbr\u003e16:30\u003cbr\u003e17:30\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eThree-Person’d God\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eREFERENCES\u003cbr\u003eACKNOWLEDGMENTS\u003cbr\u003eABOUT THE AUTHOR\u003cbr\u003eABOUT THE TRANSLATOR“Trinity, Trinity, Trinity is something like a next-step in Japanese atomic literature.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—Asian Review Of Books\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I loved Erika Kobayashi’s \u003ci\u003eTrinity Trinity Trinity\u003c\/i\u003e, so I am lining up for her collection of strange and reflective connected stories about nuclear power and its effect on Japanese people and society, especially its women.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Karla J. Strand, \u003ci\u003eMs. Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"It’s this layering that makes Kobayashi’s otherwise subtle, light-footed writing intriguing. She stacks and Tetrises themes in such a way that their meanings only become clear when seen in relation to one another — the Olympics, Nazis, Hiroshima.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Paula Aceves, \u003ci\u003eVulture\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"This compelling novel weaves together the past, the present, and a possible future in a panoply of memory, experience, and social unrest . . . examines the shifting sands of memory and interconnected identity in a fluid landscape shaped by nuclear radiation, social media, and social connection. Highly recommended.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Henry Bankhead, \u003ci\u003eLibrary Journal\u003c\/i\u003e, Starred Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Like its title suggests, this book is an intricate braid that contains so much: eco-terror, memory and history and mythology, generations of women, nuclear trauma — the list goes on. This is Kobayashi’s first translation into English and it bodes well for what’s to come. A deeply cool, deeply good book. Radioactive, indeed.\"\u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003eKelsey F., bookseller, Powell's \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Erika Kobayashi gathers world-historical, feminist, and ecological yarns to crochet a web of 'terrorist' intrigue that tugs the Tokyo Olympics completely off-course. Fast-paced, funny, and thrillingly conceptual, \u003ci\u003eTrinity, Trinity, Trinity\u003c\/i\u003e is a masterpiece from one of Japan’s most original new voices.\" \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Margherita Long, author of \u003ci\u003eCare, Kin, Crackup: Fukushima and the Intrusion of Gaia\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\"Erika Kobayashi  forms an intricate lacework of a narrative in \u003ci\u003eTrinity, Trinity, Trinity\u003c\/i\u003e, unflinchingly revealing patterns and symmetries in the history of nuclear warfare, radioactivity, and the unspoken emotional legacies inherited by generations of mothers and daughters. Possessing its own glowing dream-logic, this novel is dark and radiant all at once.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Lee Conell, author of \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe Party Upstairs\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Erika Kobayashi’s compelling new novel explores the nuclear trauma of the 20th and 21st centuries through the code name Trinity: the site of the detonation of the first atomic bomb, an allusion to a poem by John Donne, and the appearance of a strange disease, also called Trinity. Interweaving the lives of three generations of women, Kobayashi effectively combines history, memory, and forgetfulness in a gripping narrative that this reader could not put down. A major contribution to contemporary Japanese fiction by an important new author.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Janice Carole Brown, author of \u003ci\u003eTarnished Words: The Poetry of Ōba Minako\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Erika Kobayashi’s brilliant novel \u003ci\u003eTrinity, Trinity, Trinity\u003c\/i\u003e traces the everyday, yet ghostly, technologies, and the invisible forces, that shape our lives, acts, and epoch. A luminous and penetrating history of our shared present—a history felt on the body, across generations and around the world. Incandescent and indispensable, this is a stunning work by a visionary artist and writer.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Mark Seltzer, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Official World\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eTrinity, Trinity, Trinity\u003c\/i\u003e is a heartfelt and poignant novel about the aftermath of disaster. Erika Kobayashi brilliantly layers memory and oblivion, fear and doubt, destruction and recovery via the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and the Fukushima nuclear accident in a story that is hauntingly reminiscent of the COVID-19 Pandemic. Stunning and unforgettable.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—J.M. Lee, author of \u003ci\u003eBroken Summer\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \"Reading \u003ci\u003eTrinity, Trinity, Trinity\u003c\/i\u003e by Erika Kobayashi is like entering a universe beating with a deeply intelligent light. Kobayashi delicately weaves generations of women to the lasting wounds of nuclear destruction and the hubris of war. A unique and unforgettable novel.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Kali Fajardo-Anstine, author of \u003ci\u003eWoman of Light\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eTrinity, Trinity, Trinity\u003c\/i\u003e encloses the reader in a terrifying world undreamed of by the irrational. Humans reduced to themselves, their solitude and incompleteness, make their way cautiously through a world of ordered disequilibrium. Kobayashi writes with an ironic potency that illuminates the actual at every mysterious point.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Susanna Moore, author of \u003ci\u003eIn the Cut\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eErika Kobayashi is a novelist and visual artist based in Tokyo. Kobayashi creates works that are inspired by things invisible to the eye: time and history, family and memory, and the traces left in places. She was awarded the 44th Japan Sherlock Holmes Club Encouragement Award in 2022 for her novel \u003ci\u003eHis Last Bow (\u003c\/i\u003eKodansha,) the 7th Tekken Heterotopia Literary Prize in 2020 for her novel \u003ci\u003eTrinity, Trinity, Trinity (\u003c\/i\u003eShūeisha,) and won the  the 2022-2023 Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Prizes (JUSFC) for the English translation of Japanese literature for \u003ci\u003eTrinity, Trinity, Trinity,\u003c\/i\u003e translated by Brian Bergstrom. \u003ci\u003eTrinity, Trinity, Trinity\u003c\/i\u003e is her latest novel and her story collection \u003ci\u003eSunrise: Radiant Stories, \u003c\/i\u003eis forthcoming from Astra House in 2023.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTRANSLATOR BIO:\u003c\/b\u003e Brian Bergstrom is a lecturer and translator who has lived in Chicago, Kyoto, and Yokohama. His writing and translations have appeared in publications including \u003ci\u003eGranta, Aperture, Lit Hub, Mechademia, Japan Forum, positions: asia critique\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eThe Penguin Book of Japanese Short Stories\u003c\/i\u003e. He is the editor and principal translator of \u003ci\u003eWe, the Children of Cats\u003c\/i\u003e by Tomoyuki Hoshino (PM Press), which was longlisted for the 2013 Best Translated Book Award. His translation of \u003ci\u003eTrinity, Trinity, Trinity\u003c\/i\u003e by Erika Kobayashi (Astra House, 2022) won the 2022 Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission (JUSFC) Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature. He is currently based in Montréal, Canada.\u003cb\u003ePrologue\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003eLately, even when it’s light outside, I find I can’t tell if it’s morning or evening, if the sun is coming up or on its way back down. When I force my eyelids apart to check, all I see is a wide plane of sky the color of burning.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI blink, and blink again.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLooking over from my pillow, I catch sight of a clock.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e5:23\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe numbers stand out clearly on its display. The clock is cheap, plastic. \u003cbr\u003eThe crocheted lace doily lying beneath it is more to my liking, a pineapple motif woven into its pattern.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI try to lift my hand to trace the pineapple with my finger. \u003cbr\u003eBut it’s heavy as lead.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAnd not just my hand, my whole body is heavy, encased in lead.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLead.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt doesn’t feel like a metaphor. It feels literal, as if now I know the exact feeling of lead being poured over my whole body.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eStill, I feel as though touching the lace would unlock something—would allow me to remember more than I do. I concentrate my energy into my hand. My fingers brush against something; it feels like a remote control of some sort. I grab it and notice trailing down from it a thick cord.\u003cbr\u003eWhat does it connect to?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThere’s an orange bump in its center. Some sort of button?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMy hand slowly grips the control, and I use all my might to push the button.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA sudden rumbling begins, accompanied by shaking.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe ground begins to shift beneath me. The shaking sounds like the growl of a beast.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMy eyes fly open, as does my mouth, as I try to scream a scream that refuses to come out.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBut it’s not the ground that’s shifting.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt’s the bed. The section beneath my back and the section beneath my legs are rising at the same time.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eStartled, I throw the controller away. The rumbling abates; the shaking subsides.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI look around.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAll that’s visible through the window is sky.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhere is this place? Who am I?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI seem to have forgotten.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI seem to have been asleep for quite a long time.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Astra House","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46305466417381,"sku":"NP9781662602108","price":16.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781662602108.jpg?v=1767742963","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/trinity-trinity-trinity-isbn-9781662602108","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}