Japanese Author Yoko Tawada's "The Emissary" - Receives the Nat'l Bk Award '18

The hauntingly beautiful futuristic tale "The Emissary" is a sci-fi dystopian genre that is story of devotion between multi-generational family members.  Great-grandpa Yoshiro has been left with the sole care of his great-grandson Mumei.  Yoshiro takes on the responsibility fully & lovingly.  Mumei is an extraordinary young boy living in the not too distant future during an exceedingly restrictive epoch in Japan which has closed its doors to all foreign entities.  Besides becoming an isolated nation, the country is struggling with the fall-outs of catastrophic toxicity resulting in scarce food supplies and creating a corrosive environment causing a generation of frail children.  Yoshiro and his contemporaries are living into their 100s with little signs of wearing down while Mumei and his classmates are becoming weaker & dying young.  There's an irrepressible  spirit for Mumei's generation.  They appear equipped with natural defenses against despair unaware of any reason to feel sorry for themselves.  This irrepressible outlook evokes a fondness & obligation to care for our environment to ensure a future for our descendants.  Tawada's warning of self-destruction comes in the waves of love and empathy. The state of Japanese children's health was being studied hopefully to be beneficial for their young & useful for similar disastrous phenomena occurring throughout the world. Yoshiro's generation appeared to be living forever robbed of their own deaths and obligated with caring for a lost generation of infirm children.  Mumei notes that unlike his great-grandpa, he's unable to chew or swallow easily and the slightest activity drains him of strength. Mumei senses without understanding why Yoshiro should pity him. Yoshiro has the desire to laugh & cry simultaneously for Mumei while providing an unremitting devotion to be there for him.  "Assuming he had knowledge and wealth to leave his descendants was mere arrogance, Yoshiro now realized. This life with his great-grandson was about all he could manage."  Tawada's unique framing of a gloomy future through the outlook of familial loving eyes.  It's enough to make you weep for a doomed society unwilling to suppress its humanity.  Tawada (b Japan 1960) received the Nat'l Book Award for Translated Literature ('18).  This is a rare work of elegance amidst a melancholy & terrifying world that feels all too real.