A Chilean writer and her research on the Genji Monogatari; Murasaki Shikibu and the women of the Heian court; the Japanese style of the essay (zuihitzu) versus the Western essay; Spanish and Japanese language; a granddaughter and a grandmother; a monk and the void; a couple and a series of photographs; a series of books and a library are some of the dialogues proposed by María José Ferrada in Diario de Japón (A Japanese Diary), a fascinating montage of images, reflections, stories and concepts that leads us on a journey to the centre of the Japanese soul.

With intelligence, humour and a unique sensitivity, Ferrada tells us about a country so far away that it seems to be the place where all those things that are impossible elsewhere, can happen here. A territory of dreams and nightmares, impure and without a stable identity, where boys who do not leave their room coexist with the spirits that inhabit the forests.

 

WINNER OF THE CHILEAN CRITICS AWARD 2022

 

“Ferrada invites the reader to approach Japanese culture with care and a touching beauty. Her writing is brief, precise, it conjures worlds in a few lines and gives us light in these strange times […] a painfully beautiful text celebrating all that is fleeting” María José Navia

“A story made of memories, family dialogues, trips, books, doubts and learning linked to Japanese culture.[…] in which a misty nostalgia and touches of fantasy shine, and every once in a while poetry takes over the pages.” El Mercurio

“A trip to Japan that is not only an encounter with people, places and foods. It is also an introduction to its literature, society and politics. And it includes a strange theory about the head of Yukio Mishima. A luminous volume!” Felipe Gana, Diario Financiero

 

 

196 pages – Original Edition: Seix Barral / Planeta, 2021 – Foreign Editions: Spanish/Mexico (Dharma Books, 2025)