Lion Cross Point

By the winner of the Akutagawa Prize, Japan's most prestigious literary awardHow does a shy, traumatized boy overcome the shame, anger, and sadness that silence him? In Lion Cross Point, celebrated Japanese author Masatsugu Ono turns his gentle pen to the mind of ten-year-old Takeru, who arrives at his family’s home village amid a scorching summer, carrying memories of unspeakable acts against his mother and brother. As Takeru befriends Mitsuko, his new caretaker, and Saki, his spunky neighbor, he meets more of his mother’s old friends, discovering her history and inching toward a new idea of family and home. All the while he begins to see a strange figure called Bunji—the same name as a delicate young boy who mysteriously vanished long ago on the village’s breathtaking coastline at Lion Cross Point. At once a subtle portrayal of a child’s sense of memory and community, an empowering exploration of how we find the words to encompass our trauma, and a spooky Japanese ghost story, Lion Cross Point is gripping and poignant, reminiscent of Kenzaburō Ōe’s best work. Acts of heartless brutality mix with surprising moments of pure kindness, creating this utterly truthful, cathartic tale of an unforgettable young boy.

San Francisco Chronicle

“It’s the shifting relationship between Takeru’s shameful memories of what transpired and his gradual adjustment to the kindhearted people and landscapes of his mysterious new surroundings that makes the novel both unsettling and quietly moving.”

The Japan Times

“Ono’s heartrending portrayal of how memory untangles after tragedy smooths the way for Takeru’s growing resilience.”

Tobias Carroll, Literary Hub

"Masatsugu Ono’s Lion Cross Point pulls off a number of narrative elements that I admire in fiction. . . . A moving and (literally) haunting novel."

Akhil Sharma author of Family Life

"This is a book of the first order. A haunting mystery, it is about parents and children, about war and peace. Surely this book means that Masatsugu Ono belongs in the first ranks of not just Japanese literature but world literature."

San Francisco Chronicle

“A mesmeric fusion of fable, ghost story and haunting depiction of family trauma. . . . It’s the shifting relationship between Takeru’s shameful memories of what transpired and his gradual adjustment to the kindhearted people and landscapes of his mysterious new surroundings that makes the novel both unsettling and quietly moving.”

Sara Balabanlilar, Brazos Bookstore

"Lion Cross Point is a MASTERPIECE. Just finished it. It is too beautiful; hard to imagine that much depth of emotion is possible in 120 pages."

Publishers Weekly

"Ono uses minimalist language and metaphor to create a gentle yet powerful rendering of the inner turmoil of a boy struggling to comprehend acts of kindness and violence."

Stuart Dybek, author of The Coast of Chicago

"Masatsugu Ono’s lucid, spare novel explores the question: What is finally more mysterious than family? It is not the unraveling of a mystery, but the tangible evocation of mystery itself as it rises from anecdotes and intuitions, from the layering of the innuendos of memory with the overtones and undertones of dream and seascape, that distinguishes this hauntingly written and beautifully translated book."

Yoko Ogawa, author of The Memory Police

"Masatsugu Ono’s work vibrates with the sounds of voices whose meaning has yet to be discovered. In Lion Cross Point, even those who have been deprived of their voice find their place among us."

Jeffrey Angles, 2017 Yomiuri Prize recipient

"Masatsugu Ono, one of the most important Japanese novelists of the post-Murakami generation, has created a lyrical, psychologically astute novel that will only whet international appetites for more of his work."

From the Back Cover

How does a shy, traumatized boy overcome the shame, anger, and sadness that silence him? In Lion Cross Point, celebrated Japanese author Masatsugu Ono turns his gentle pen to the mind of ten-year-old Takeru, who arrives at his family’s home village amid a scorching summer, carrying memories of unspeakable acts against his mother and brother. As Takeru befriends Mitsuko, his new caretaker, and Saki, his spunky neighbor, he meets more of his mother’s old friends, discovering her history and inching toward a new idea of family and home. All the while he begins to see a strange figure called Bunji—the same name as a delicate young boy who mysteriously vanished long ago on the village’s breathtaking coastline at Lion Cross Point. At once a subtle portrayal of a child’s sense of memory and community, an empowering exploration of how we find the words to encompass our trauma, and a spooky Japanese ghost story, Lion Cross Point is gripping and poignant, reminiscent of Kenzaburō Ōe’s best work. Acts of heartless brutality mix with surprising moments of pure kindness, creating this utterly truthful, cathartic tale of an unforgettable young boy.

About the Author

Masatsugu Ono is one of Japan’s most lauded contemporary authors. His novel Mizu ni umoreru haka (The Water-Covered Grave) won the Asahi Award for New Writers, and Nigiyakana wan ni seowareta fune (Boat on a Choppy Bay) won the Mishima Prize. He also received the Akutagawa Prize, Japan's highest literary honor, in 2015. He lives in Tokyo.Angus Turvill's translations include Tales from a Mountain Cave, by the great humorist and anti-militarist Hisashi Inoue, Heaven’s Wind, a bilingual collection of stories by some of Japan’s finest contemporary women writers, and The Art of Discarding by Japan’s original decluttering guru Nagisa Tatsumi. He has won the Grand Prize in the Shizuoka International Translation Competition, and has received John Dryden and Kurodahan translation awards. An instructor of Japanese translation, he lives in Norfolk, U.K.

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