The Place of Shells: by Mai Ishizawa; translated by Polly Barton - Spectrum Culture

The Place of Shells: by Mai Ishizawa; translated by Polly Barton - Spectrum Culture

Mai Ishizawa’s debut novella, The Place of Shells is a circular walk through time and space. The German city of Göttingen at the time of COVID-19 overlaps with Sendai, Japan at the time of the Great East Japan Earthquake, the devastating 2011 disaster that resulted in the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident. In both places, physical manifestations of grief emerge, disappear and attach themselves to the living. In the wake of 2011, our unnamed nar…