Abstract

Office worker Ryosuke Sawano, who lives an ordinary existence with his wife in a regional city, keeps an anonymous blog voicing his discontent about his life in comparison with that of his elder brother Takashi, an elite civil servant in Tokyo. Meanwhile, a middle schooler named Tomoya Kitazaki is suffering at the hands of bullies and harboring growing fantasies of murder.
One day, Ryosuke abruptly disappears. Then in October 2002, a dismembered body is discovered along with a note taking responsibility for the murder. The perpetrator calls themselves “The Devil.” And the suspect is the brilliant, seemingly unperturbed elite official and elder brother of the victim, Takashi Sawano....
The reader is confronted with a plethora of issues. Who is The Devil? What does it mean to withdraw from society? An unending string of murders. Truths brought to light. And Tokyo caught in a storm of terrorism.
The questions continue. Why do people kill others? What does it mean to forgive? And when something truly unforgivable happens, how should people act?
With its twin themes of murder and forgiveness, this longform novel is a shocking, unflinching look at the loneliness of contemporary life

Author’s Information

Hirano was born in 1975. In 1999 at the tender age of 23, while still studying at Kyoto University, he was awarded the Akutagawa Prize, Japan’s most prestigious literary award, for the work Nisshoku [Eclipse], first published in the literary magazine Shincho. His novel became a bestseller, selling 400,000 copies, and he was hailed as the new Yukio Mishima. To date he has published 15 works, many award-winning, across a wide range of genres and each with its own style. In 2004, he spent a year in Paris as a Cultural Ambassador for the Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs. Recognizing his extensive knowledge of fine art and music as well as literature, France made him a Chevalier des Artes et des Lettres in 2014.
His elegant, pellucid prose fashions stories that are multilayered in their portrayal of current social issues yet plotted as compelling page-turners. Hirano focuses squarely on the lifestyles and identities of modern-day people, bringing to his novels in equal measure an acute critique of society and a profound literariness.
The many films and drama series based on Hirano’s works have been nominated for awards both within and outside Japan. He has secured his place among Japan’s most recognized contemporary novelists, with not only best-sellers across the board but also a seat on the committee deciding the annual Akutagawa Award that he himself won so early in his career.
Now transcending national borders, Hirano has been translated numerous times. So far two of his novels have appeared in English translation, beginning with A MAN in 2020 and followed by At the End of the Matinee in 2021. A MAN alone has received over 3,500 online reviews with a high average score of 4.2 out of five, and seen good sales. Translations of his works have also been published in French via Actes Sud Editions, and in German via Suhrkamp Verlag, among other languages.