From the acclaimed writer and journalist, a vivid and wide-ranging portrait of love, sex, and loneliness in contemporary Japan.

No sex. No kids. No future?

When Tom Feiling moved to Tokyo as a student in the early nineties, Japan was a beacon of the future: a rising superpower, a technology giant, and a global symbol of prosperity, civility, and success. When he returned twenty-four years later, the country was still a sign of things to come – but, he began to realize, it was no longer a beacon. It was a warning.

This book offers a unique portrait of life in contemporary Japan, from the quiet of its furthest villages to the dynamism of its megacities. It tells the story of how, from the mid-seventies onwards, Japanese society unknowingly embarked on a vast, silent process of transformation that is still unfolding today. The country remains peaceful; it remains prosperous. But the population is shrinking. As things stand, it will decline by a third with each new generation.

Traveling through shrines and bars, rice fields and mango farms, coffee shops and old people’s homes, Feiling encounters those affected by, and driving, this transformation. Through countless interviews and extensive research, he weaves together a powerful account of how and why men and women are ceasing to pair off and have children. He reveals how sexual appetites and behaviors are both shaped by, and reshaping, the evolving economy, and considers the risks – and the opportunities – of the rise in solo living in Japan, and beyond.

Clear-sighted and surprising, Alone in Japan is a portrait of love, sex, and death in contemporary Japan that should provoke and engage us all. It is an electrifying portrait of a nation on the brink by one of the most original reporters working today.

Pages: 368, Dimensions: 16.3x16.3cm