THE PLACE OF SHELLS by Mai Ishizawa

Translated by Polly Barton

Towards the end of Mai Ishizawa’s quietly sublime novel, The Place of Shells, a young woman reminisces on her younger brother who died when they were both children. She is holding a bike wheel and toy lance, two things integral to the boy’s favourite game of medieval . However, they are merely aides de memoire of images she knows were implanted through her parents’ stories. This realisation, that memory is porous and malleable and often uncertain, lies at the heart of Ishizawa’s book.

The Place of Shells is narrated by a young doctoral student who has moved to the German town of Göttingen to pursue her studies. She is visited by her old friend and colleague Nomiya. Except Nomiya died nine years beforehand in the 2011 tsunami and his body was never found. What follows is a melancholic, meandering meditation on grief, trauma and the things to which we cling to remember those we’ve lost. As the narrator and Nomiya explore Göttingen, strange phenomena beset the town, and the two collect a ragtag group of friends who have experienced similarly personal tragedies.

It makes for a balm of sorts, where peace is found in contemplation, and contentment in acceptance. Transcendant.

The Place of Shells by Mai Ishizawa (Tr. Polly Barton)
New Directions, 2025
145 pages