Named one of the best books of 2017 by The Guardian, NPR, GQ, The Economist, Bookforum, and Lit Hub The definitive account of what happened, why, and above all how it felt, when catastrophe hit Japan—by the Japan correspondent of The Times (London) and author of People Who Eat Darkness On March 11, 2011, a powerful earthquake sent a 120-foot-high tsunami smashing into the coast of northeast Japan. By the time the sea retreated, more than eighteen thousand people had been crushed, burned to death, or drowned. It was Japan’s greatest single loss of life since the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. It set off a national crisis and the meltdown of a nuclear power plant. And even after the immediate emergency had abated, the trauma of the disaster continued to express itself in bizarre and mysterious ways. Richard Lloyd Parry, an award-winning foreign correspondent, lived through the earthquake in Tokyo and spent six years reporting from the disaster zone. There he encountered stories of ghosts and hauntings, and met a priest who exorcised the spirits of the dead. And he found himself drawn back again and again to a village that had suffered the greatest loss of all, a community tormented by unbearable mysteries of its own. What really happened to the local children as they waited in the schoolyard in the moments before the tsunami? Why did their teachers not evacuate them to safety? And why was the unbearable truth being so stubbornly covered up? Ghosts of the Tsunami is a soon-to-be classic intimate account of an epic tragedy, told through the accounts of those who lived through it. It tells the story of how a nation faced a catastrophe, and the struggle to find consolation in the ruins.

The definitive account of what happened, why, and above all how it felt, when catastrophe hit Japan—by the Japan correspondent of The Times (London) and author of People Who Eat Darkness

'A remarkable and deeply moving book' Henry Marsh, bestselling author of Do No Harm 'A breathtaking, extraordinary work of non-fiction' Times Literary Supplement On 11 March 2011, a massive earthquake sent a 120-foot-high tsunami smashing into the coast of north-east Japan. It was Japan's greatest single loss of life since the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. Richard Lloyd Parry, an award-winning foreign correspondent, lived through the earthquake in Tokyo, and spent six years reporting from the epicentre. Learning about the lives of those affected through their own personal accounts, he paints a rich picture of the impact the tsunami had on day to day Japanese life. Heart-breaking and hopeful, this intimate account of a tragedy unveils the unique nuances of Japanese culture, the tsunami's impact on Japan's stunning and majestic landscape and the psychology of its people. Ghosts of the Tsunami is an award-winning classic of literary non-fiction. It tells the moving, evocative story of how a nation faced an unimaginable catastrophe and rebuilt to look towards the future. **WINNER OF THE RATHBONES FOLIO PRIZE**

A puzzling tsunami entered Japanese history in January 1700. Samurai, merchants, and villagers wrote of minor flooding and damage. Some noted having felt no earthquake; they wondered what had set off the waves but had no way of knowing that the tsunami was spawned during an earthquake along the coast of northwestern North America. This orphan tsunami would not be linked to its parent earthquake until the mid-twentieth century, through an extraordinary series of discoveries in both North America and Japan. The Orphan Tsunami of 1700, now in its second edition, tells this scientific detective story through its North American and Japanese clues. The story underpins many of today�s precautions against earthquake and tsunami hazards in the Cascadia region of northwestern North America. The Japanese tsunami of March 2011 called attention to these hazards as a mirror image of the transpacific waves of January 1700. Hear Brian Atwater on NPR with Renee Montagne http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4629401

A part-manga, part-prose powerful coming-of-age story about a fifteen-year-old girl caught up in the March 2011 Great Eastern Japan Earthquake and Tsunami.

Reprint. Originally published: London: Jonathan Cape, 2005.

A riveting account of Japan's triple disaster and an insightful look into what the responses of its people reveal about the national character Blending history, science, and gripping storytelling, Strong in the Rain brings the 9.0 magnitude earthquake that struck Japan in 2011 and its immediate aftermath to life through the eyes of the men and women who experienced it. Following the narratives of six individuals, the book traces the shape of a disaster and the heroics it prompted, including that of David Chumreonlert, a Texan with Thai roots, trapped in his school's gymnasium with hundreds of students and teachers as it begins to flood, and Taro Watanabe, who thought nothing of returning to the Fukushima plant to fight the nuclear disaster, despite the effects that he knew would stay with him for the rest of his life. This is a beautifully written and moving account from Lucy Birmingham and David McNeill of how the Japanese experienced one of the worst earthquakes in history and endured its horrific consequences.