Marugame, Japan

This volume about Marugame is an extended essay that takes snapshots of a place that is not well-known even in Japan. It covers a period from when I made my first visit in 1998 to 2020, the early chapters adapted from those that appeared in a book I wrote at the turn of the century.

The waters of the Seto Inland Sea lap on its shoreline; the air is tinged with salt, yet behind Marugame lie densely vegetated mountains that rise up steeply from a plain to create a geological amphitheatre, an ever present backdrop and the backbone of Shikoku.

Thus trapped by rock and sea, the people of Marugame define and live out their lives.

This volume is one of five in the Japan series that cover various aspects of Japan as a subject matter: