As time goes by, I find myself thinking again about a certain story. I wonder, Is that world really over and done with?

Take the story of Strange Weather in Tokyo. What happened to Tsukiko after Sensei died? What about Takashi Kojima? And Satoru’s bar? And if I were to go even further back, to when Sensei was still alive, I wonder how Tsukiko and Sensei really spent their time, day by day. When they weren’t meeting up at the bar. When they were on their own. Or on their occasional dates. Did they go on any more trips together?

These are some of the thoughts that have passed through my mind since I finished writing that book. All the things that I wasn’t able to include in that book—things that even I, as the author, don’t know about Sensei and Tsukiko’s time together. Like echoes that I hear, far off in the distance.

This book might describe a day that Tsukiko and Sensei spent together in early summer. On another day, presumably they passed their time differently.

The world that exists behind a story is never fully known, not even to the author. That is what I had in mind as I created this. I hope you have enjoyed reading this memento of a story that has ended.

© Bungeishunjū Ltd.

HIROMI KAWAKAMI was born in Tokyo in 1958. Her first book, God (Kamisama), was published in 1994. In 1996, she was awarded the Akutagawa Prize for Tread on a Snake (Hebi o fumu), and in 2001 she won the Tanizaki Prize for her novel Strange Weather in Tokyo (Sensei no kaban), which was an international bestseller. The book was short-listed for the 2012 Man Asian Literary Prize and the 2014 International Foreign Fiction Prize.

ALLISON MARKIN POWELL is a translator, editor, and publishing consultant. In addition to Hiromi Kawakami’s Strange Weather in Tokyo, The Nakano Thrift Shop, and The Ten Loves of Nishino, she has translated books by Osamu Dazai and Fuminori Nakamura, and her work has appeared in Words Without Borders and Granta, among other publications. She maintains the database japaneseliteratureinenglish.com.