Miracles
A Novel
Sono Ayako
Translated by Kevin Doak
2016, 256 pages
ISBN 978-1-937385-88-0 Paper $25.00
ISBN 978-1-937385-89-7 Cloth $55.00
Miracles is a work of travel fiction in the best tradition of the “I-novel” genre of Japanese literature. Closely mirroring the author’s own travels in the early 1970s throughout Poland and Italy in pursuit of the miracles ascribed to St. Maximilian Kolbe, the work takes the reader on a geographical and spiritual journey of immense riches. Sono’s narrator sensitively explores cultural differences, religious faith, science and the question of miracles, and the atrocity of Auschwitz where St. Kolbe offered up his life in exchange for a condemned prisoner.
Already described as a “minor classic” of Japanese literature before it was translated into English, Doak’s translation makes available this remarkable work by one of postwar Japan’s most talented writers to a broader international audience.
A novel for all seasons, Miracles is sure to leave the reader profoundly changed.
