Horses, Horses, in the End the Light Remains Pure is a multifaceted
literary response to the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown that
devastated northeast Japan on March 11, 2011. The novel is narrated by
Hideo Furukawa, who travels back to his childhood home near Fukushima
after 3/11 to reconnect with a place that is now doubly alien. His
ruminations conjure the region's storied past, particularly its
thousand-year history of horses, humans, and the struggle with a rugged
terrain. Standing in the morning light, these horses also tell their
stories, heightening the sense of liberation, chaos, and loss that
accompanies Furukawa's rich recollections. A fusion of fiction, history,
and memoir, this book plays with form and feeling in ways reminiscent of
Vladimir Nabokov's Speak, Memory and W. G. Sebald's The Rings of Saturn
yet draws its own, unforgettable portrait of personal and cultural
dislocation.