Every Human Intention
Japan in the New Century
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
A stunning blend of investigative journalism, authoritative science writing, and embedded ethnography. Every Human Intention captures the unsettling, lyrical beauty of the intimate moments and buried secrets that form Japan’s national drama.
“An absolute marvel. Reveals the inner workings of modern-day Japan like no other work of literary nonfiction I have read, and does so with the smooth story-telling expertise of a novelist.”—Richard Wiley, author of Soldiers in Hiding
Every Human Intention takes us beyond political debates and news analysis, into the infinite complexity of historically significant events as they unfold. Admitted to the innermost corridors of Japan’s bureaucracy, Richard witnesses the near-collapse of the nation’s nuclear regulator and meticulously documents the way this upheaval is concealed from the public. Through his decade-long relationship with Japan’s Nigerian community, he pursues the elaborate cover-up at the heart of Japan’s immigration system. On the nation’s northern border, he follows the region’s youngest census worker through a landscape of abandoned homes and vanishing lives. In Richard’s poised narration, there are no simple answers or elegant conclusions—only the unsettling, lyrical beauty of the intimate moments and buried secrets that form Japan’s national drama.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Journalist Richard debuts with a keenly observed yet uneven study of modern-day Japan. Spotlighting the country's Nigerian immigrant community; the depopulation of Wakkanai, Japan's northernmost city; and mismanagement by the government's nuclear regulatory agency, Richard illustrates the complexities of a nation with an aging population in industrial decline, a monocultural xenophobia that all but closes off economic opportunity for immigrants, and an entrenched, corrupt bureaucracy that multiplies the dangers of its nuclear power industry while concealing them from the public. Discriminated against by Japanese society, the Nigerian men Richard profiles work in Tokyo's red-light districts, where they are treated with suspicion by the police and get caught between the desire to return home and the need to make money. Wading deep into the weeds of post-Fukushima reform efforts, Richard documents everything from the geochemical composition of nuclear plant sites to bitter infighting among the regulatory judges. The book shines in its poignant profiles of elderly Japanese people in the "second-class city" of Wakkanai, who remember their community's post-WWII heyday. Though full of rich detail and nuanced insights, Richard's trio of niche subjects doesn't quite amount to a full-dimensional portrait.
