Territory of Light

First published 1978–1979

Territory Of Light is the radiant story of a young woman, living alone in Tokyo with her two-year-old daughter in 1970s Tokyo. "Wonderfully poetic... extraordinary freshness... a Virginia Woolf quality" (Margaret Drabble).

"Tsushima evades any label, her fiction transcends gender to focus on the existential loneliness that is at the heart of humanity." – Kris Kosaka, The Japan Times

Its twelve chapters follow the first year of the narrator's separation from her husband. The novel is full of light, sometimes comforting & sometimes dangerous: sunlight streaming through windows, dappled light in the park, distant fireworks, dazzling floodwater, de-saturated streetlamps & mysterious explosions. The delicate prose is beautifully patterned: the cumulative effect is disarmingly powerful & bright after-images remain in your mind for a long time.

"There is something deeply seductive about being drawn into the intimate thoughts of a woman who otherwise would tell them to no one. [ . . . ] This portrait of an imperfect mother who strives to provide a good life for her child feels painfully relevant." – Rowan Hisayo Buchanan

At once tender & lacerating, luminous & unsettling, Territory Of Light is a novel of abandonment, desire & transformation. It was originally published in twelve parts in the Japanese literary monthly Gunzo, between 1978 & 1979, each chapter marking the months in real-time.