Isle of Dreams (Japanese Literature Series)

Hino’s novels have been compared to the work of J. G. Ballard. Available for the first time in English: his masterpiece Island of Dreams.

Though it has a lovely name, the real “Island of Dreams” is actually a hunk of reclaimed land in Tokyo Bay where the city dumps its garbage . . . and yet, Shozo Saka, a middle-aged widower, does indeed find the place beautiful: gravitating more and more, since the death of his wife, toward the Island’s massive piles of trash. One day, however, his refuge is invaded by Yoko, a mysterious woman in black, who visits the Island on her motorcycle for no other reason than to treat it as her own private obstacle course. Soon Yoko has lured Saka away from his garbage-paradise, leading him back into a Tokyo far less benign than the things it’s thrown away. Acclaimed on its first publication, Island of Dreams is a sinister satire on urban decay.