Summer at Mount Asama

Winner of The Yomiuri Prize for Literature

This prize-winning debut novel offers a compelling, insightful portrait of 1980s Japan, portraying a group of architects competing to design a major new building in Tokyo.

Tōru Sakanishi is a recent university graduate who joins a small, prestigious architecture firm founded by Shunsuke Murai, a former student of Frank Lloyd Wright. A sensitive and observant narrator, Sakanishi is captivated by the artistic quality and careful consideration the Murai Office shows to each of its designs.

As the sweltering summer months approach, the team migrates from Tokyo to Kita-Asama, a mountain village and artists’ colony whose heyday has passed. There, they set out to design the National Library of Modern Literature, competing against a rival firm that snaps up one government project after the next.

Over the course of this summer, Sakanishi encounters four remarkable women who change the course of his life.

Beautifully translated by National Book Award winner Margaret Mitsutani, Summer at Mount Asama is a character-driven story with prose that highlights the natural beauty of Japan, the ingenuity of architecture, and the clashing of modernity and tradition.