Natsu Miyashita (1967–) was born in Fukui Prefecture. She became an avid reader at a young age, and also loved to write in school. After graduating with a degree in philosophy from Sophia University in Tokyo, she got married and returned to Fukui. It was not until her mid-thirties, when she was pregnant with her third child, that she began writing fiction—in part out of a fear that her life might otherwise be reduced to nothing but child rearing. The resulting novella, Shizuka na ame (Quiet Rain), received an honorable mention in the 2004 Bungakukai Prize for New Writers competition. Encouraged, she continued writing amid the demands of child rearing. Her 2007 novel Sukōre No. 4 (Scholé No. 4) put her in the spotlight thanks to a group of bookstore attendants who started a spontaneous Twitter campaign to promote the pocket paperback edition of the book when it was published. Dareka ga tarinai (Someone Is Missing), a volume of linked stories with a touch of mystery, was voted seventh in the 2011 Booksellers Award balloting, and her novel Hitsuji to hagane no mori (A Forest of Wool and Steel) not only took the top spot for the 2016 Booksellers Award but was shortlisted for the prestigious Naoki Prize. Her other novels include Taiyō no pasuta, mame no sūpu (Sun Pasta, Bean Soup), and Inaka no shinshifuku-ten no moderu no tsuma (The Wife of a Rural Menswear Store Model).
This book is an account of the year author Natsu Miyashita and her family spent living in the remote mountain village of Tomuraushi in Hokkaido. It was this year-long sojourn surrounded by incomparable ...
