A review by toadlett
The Last Children of Tokyo by Yōko Tawada

emotional funny hopeful mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

One of the stranger books I've encountered in my exploration of the climate fiction in the library where I work. It is undoubtedly climate fiction - a story about a world where the land is increasingly unlivable, children are born strangely ill, and all the previous norms of day to day life are overturned - but without pulling its punches at all it refuses to languish in hopelessness or doomsaying. Everything is different un many very sad and strange ways, but people carry on as best they can. I find Tawada's device of having the elderly become stronger and more vital, seemingly doomed to immortality while their children wither away, sickly and fragile but peacefully stoic, a powerful note of anger at the injustice of younger people suffering climate disruption they did not cause. That she still portrays the elderly with empathy and nuance shows how good she is at blending the terrible tragedy the book is about with her own humour and feeling for people who did after all have very little choice. Without wanting to spoil the whole book, the way that the elderly keep trying to rely on the young to save the world feels like a vicious and prescient punchline.