31 years in Japan

an autobiographical essay on contemporary Japanese society

This book deals with two stories: the author’s and his object of study, contemporary Japanese society. Both merge into the 31 years he lived within it. The reader will find passages highlighting the points of contact between the two stories and others in which he distances himself from his personal history to analyze various aspects of Japanese society in an accessible way, trying to avoid academicism. In some chapters, he refers to the historical sources of its current situation, history as an indispensable tool to understand the present. He does the same with himself: he studies the history of his long stay in Japan to understand the origins of a vital crisis that he overcame during the process of writing the book. This crisis and its overcoming are the themes of the first and the last chapters.