A Hundred Years and a Day: 34 Stories

by Tomoka Shibasaki, Polly Barton (Translator)

This ground-breaking collection from Tomoka Shibasaki, author of the acclaimed novel Spring Garden, pushes the short story to a new level.


In these stories of human connection in a contemporary, alienated world, people come together to share pieces of their lives, then part. We meet the women who share a house after the outbreak of war before going their separate ways once it is over; the man who lives in a succession of rooftop apartments; the diverging lives of two brothers who are raised as latch-key kids by factory workers; the old ramen restaurant that endures despite the demolition of all surrounding buildings; people who watch a new type of spaceship lift off from a pier that once belonged to an island resort; and more.

These 34 tales from all over the planet have the compulsive power of news reports, narrated in a crisp yet allegorical style.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Japanese Literature, Japan, International

208 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 25, 2025

About the author

Tomoka Shibasaki (柴崎 友香) is a Japanese author. She graduated from Osaka Prefecture University and worked for four years before her debut in 2000, the novel Kyō no dekigoto, which was filmed by Isao Yukisada in 2003.

In 2014 she won the 151th Akutagawa Prize with her novel Haru no niwa.

See also 柴崎 友香.

Reviews

[Liong · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like reading short stories, and this book has 34 of them.

The stories are about people living their everyday lives, with small pieces of their world shared.

Some stories feel like simple glimpses into daily life, without a clear ending.

I felt sad in some stories when the characters had to face difficult realities.

The stories make you notice small things in life that you usually overlook.

The characters feel real, even though the stories are short. 😊

After reading, you feel thoughtful, like you want to pause and reflect.

The book stays in your mind, even after you finish it. 👍

[Alwynne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Originally serialised, Tomoka Shibasaki’s 2020 collection consists of 34 minimalist pieces – some span less than a page. Action’s mostly compressed, years can pass in a sentence, there’s little to no conventional plot or character development. Shibasaki’s more intent on exploring personal preoccupations and themes that’ve surfaced throughout her work: the flow of time, changing neighbourhoods and architecture, nostalgia and loss. Many entries build on Shibasaki’s fascination with photography, attempts to capture a moment or convey the essence of a landscape. Delivered in a matter-of-fact, restrained yet nuanced style, her fable-like pieces often present fleeting scenes from an individual’s or a community’s history: shops or cafés frequented in childhood or youth now demolished or repurposed; a half-remembered schoolfriend. Landscapes and spaces may be palimpsestic, only partially erasing what was there before or the process of erasure may be complete. But Shibasaki’s world is above all impermanent, traditions may cease, intimate friendships abruptly end. Yet events that might have seemed inconsequential at the time, may persist through memory, glimpsed through blurry images formed in the mind.

The majority of Shibasaki’s idiosyncratic titles summarise what’s to follow, undermining any impulse to focus on plot, shifting emphasis to what she’s actually trying to say, how she depicts the passage of time, a mood or atmosphere, for instance: “The tobacco shop on the corner was draped in wisteria that burst into glorious blossom every spring; upon close inspection, it became clear that this wisteria was actually two wisteria plants that had grown intertwined; these days nobody remembered that one of them had been found on the street years before.” Deliberately evocative, Shibasaki’s wants her stories to stimulate her readers’ own recollections, not unlike Joe Brainard’s I Remember. A prime example is Shibasaki’s account of a cat who passes a particular house once a day for years, always at the same time, then stops, which provokes similar everyday mysteries: the regular at the local shop who’s suddenly not; the person seen at the station each day who inexplicably vanished as if they were never there.

Some pieces connect thematically. A series featuring a daughter visiting her mother on her way home from work constructs an intriguing portrait of cultural shifts from one generation to the next. Stories about local shops and cafés form a revealing narrative of Japanese society over time: cycles of economic boom and bust; climate change; corrupt property development and rapid gentrification devastating established local communities. Thoughtful and provocative, Shibasaki's pieces made a strong impression. Although I think it's a book best savoured, gently sipped rather than gulped down - devouring it too quickly would definitely lessen its overall force. Translated by Polly Barton.

Thanks to Edelweiss and publisher Stone Bridge Press/Monkey for an ARC

[Carolyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

Że „Spring Garden” mi się nie spodobało, to jakoś mogłam przeżyć i wytłumaczyć sobie kwestią gustu, ale tutaj naprawdę nie dowierzam, że komuś chciało się wydać i przetłumaczyć aż 34 nic nieznaczące opowiadania. Czy to jest jakiś industry plant?

[GONZA · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is very likely that if I were Japanese, these little slice of daily life, i.e. these 34 short stories completely detached from each other in which you sometimes struggle to understand who is speaking or who the main character is, I would have liked them more. I say this because it is likely that an inner eye is able to appreciate these visions of a world that is not my own more than I do. I still remain fascinated by this kind of storytelling even though I am not sure I would recommend it to everyone or choose to read any other book by this writer, partly because I was probably expecting something different.

È molto probabile che se fossi giapponese, questi piccoli spaccati di vita quotidiana, i.e. queste 34 brevi storie completamente staccate tra di loro in cui a volte si fatica a capire chi parli o chi sia il personaggio principale, mi sarebbero piaciute di piú. Dico questo perché é probabile che un occhio interno sia in grado di apprezzare piú di me queste visioni di un mondo che non é il mio. Resto comunque affascinata da questo tipo di narrazione anche se non sono sicura che lo consiglierei a tutti né che sceglierei di leggere qualche altro libro di questa scrittrice, anche perché probabilmente mi aspettavo qualcosa di diverso.

I received from the Publisher a complimentary digital advanced review copy of the book in exchange for a honest review.

[Lau · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good collection of short stories, most are mildly entertaining. The stories I particularly take a liking: 7, 8, 15, 17, 27, 28, and 29.
I think it's fascinating how we get these glimpses into one's life, someone before, and after them; how some things change and others stay the same no matter how much time has passed.

Here's brief explanation behind my favorites:
7. The character doesn't dwell too much, simply follows the flow of life.
8. Discuss economy plays an important part in our life.
‪

“If you've got no money then you can't do anything, wherever you go. Wherever you go, it's the same.”

15. Relatable, how we just drift apart from some people without any fight.. the only reason being life happens.
‪

“Sometimes they'd recall a particular movie that they've seen together in that cinema. At those times, they'd want to talk with someone about what they'd seen, but would have the feeling nobody would get what they were trying to say, apart from the person they'd been to the cinema with, so they didn't say anything.”

17. How we see a piece of someone's life through stuff they once owned. Wondering what attracted them to this object we are currently drawn into as we stumble upon it in a secondhand store.
27. The realization that the very place we are standing on didn't always exist, and may be gone.
‪‪

“Would even this small coastal country─where ever more high-rise buildings were being built, and where the sight of soil beneath one's foot had disappeared long ago─be returned do desert someday in the distant future?”

28. Wintry vibes. I like this one most of all.
A boy having a conversation with his friend on their way home days before his disappearance, and this friend thought of something that seems foreboding.
‪

“Looking at the fallen snow sparkling blue-white at their feet despite the darkness of the sky, from which fresh snow fell ceaselessly, the fourth-floor kid wondered if in fact those two words, scary and beautiful, meant the same thing.”

29. One of the characters saying ‪“I feel like a ghost is less scary than someone with bad intentions." in response to horror gossip, commenting how creepy old guys' obsession with Japanese young girls in school uniform.

Thank you Netgalley for the ARC in exchange of honest review!

[Olivier · Rating 4 out of 5]

Il y a quelque chose d’unique dans ce petit recueil de nouvelles minimalistes. D’abord parce que l’entièreté du contenu des nouvelles sont résumées dans leurs titres, qui font parfois plusieurs lignes, ensuite parce que le travail de l’autrice s’apparente parfois davantage à celui d’une peintre qui nous fait un portrait d’une personne ou d’un lieu dans le temps et c’est vraiment magnifique sans chercher à prétendre à être ultra transcendantal. C’est difficile d’expliquer pourquoi ou comment ça fonctionne si bien et je ne sais pas si ça fonctionnera aussi bien pour tout le monde mais pour moi c’était une très belle expérience.

Je n’avais jamais entendu parler de Shibasaki avant de tomber sur ces livre par hasard chez Argo bookshop (la meilleure place à Montréal pour les fans de littérature japonaise!) mais j’ai très hâte d’en lire d’autres et puis j’ai constaté en lisant un peu sur elle que Hamaguchi a tiré Asako 1&2 d’une de ses oeuvres. J’espère qu’on aura bientôt beaucoup d’autres traductions de son oeuvre!

[Vipul Murarka · Rating 1 out of 5]

This review is going to be harsh. I have loved Japanese books, short stories, novels. Murakami being one of my all time favorites. So I was expecting certain "weirdness" (for the lack of a better word) in the stories. This is actually what pulled me to request the DRC for the book.

But I was absolutely disappointed. the stories do not make any sense at all. they have no meaning to it. They would end abruptly. In some stories, the characters would change and you would be figuring out which was the main character. I had to leave this book in between as it became annoying after a point.

[Richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is something magical here. On the surface just a collection of simple short stories but the sum of all the parts makes something memorable and worthwhile.

An interesting collection of short stories, they are so ordinary you might have overheard a few on your journey home. They reflect life, a way of life no longer seen, due to progress and development over time.
The people, the locations and the simple aspects of daily existence. Neighbourhoods, basic interactions and hopes for the future.

Unlike some tales there isn’t an element of mystery, the supernatural or folklore nuances and influences are largely absent. Rather these seem plain narratives, factual fiction that entertain by their ordinariness. Almost unrelated events are linked as one remembrance spawns a new recollection.

It is this matter of fact approach, these brief insights that open expansive vistas, introduces characters that stick in the mind and allows your imagination to continue long after the story has ended.

The stories normality and simplicity allows a gentle stroll through the book as if you were turning pages in a photo album. The magic and compulsion brought about by good writing.

We had a geography teacher you could sidetrack and set off on a tangent that left glaciation behind to embrace random, unrelated and involved accounts of unforgettable information. It broke up his lessons and often led him to forget to set homework. I love this book as it is the direct opposite of such rambling. These are stories brimming with life; well written and beautifully translated that lift your spirit and have you enthralled and hanging on every word. If you like stories you’ll love this book full of a different culture and refreshing outlook on life.

[Danni · Rating 4 out of 5]

a collection of 34 short stories that explore human connection in an ever-changing world??? count. me. in.
these stories feel both intimate and vast, capturing fleeting moments between people and the places they inhabit.

Shibasaki has a gift for making the ordinary feel profound. Whether it’s women temporarily sharing a house during wartime, a man hopping between rooftop apartments, or an old ramen shop standing resilient while everything around it disappears, her characters exist in a state of quiet flux. their lives intersect, separate, and leave behind traces of meaning that linger long after the last page. the writing is sharp and restrained, almost journalistic in its clarity, yet filled with subtle allegory. there's a sense of detachment, but not coldness—more like watching lives unfold through a hazy window. she doesn’t spell things out; instead, she trusts the reader to sit with the ambiguity. some stories hint at societal shifts, like war, urban redevelopment, or technological progress, but never in a heavy-handed way.

what stands out to me??? the atmosphere—melancholic yet strangely comforting. it captures the bittersweet nature of change, the way people and places evolve, disappear, or endure. these are stories that make you pause and reflect, not because they deliver grand resolutions, but because they don’t. if love quiet, thought-provoking fiction that lingers in the mind, this collection is a must-read. the author proves once again why she’s one of the most compelling voices in contemporary literature.

4.5 stars!

[José Miguel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Todo cambia, se transforma, desaparece, lo que parecía permanente muchas veces resulta efímero. Una lectura muy recomendable, 34 relatos que nos sumerguen en lo rápido que discurre el tiempo. Me ha agradado mucho, cada pagina es relajante , viendo pasar el tiempo y como los espacios van cambiando, donde había una tienda,pasan los años y construyen apartamentos.Se disfruta leyendo y meditando a la vez sobre las transformaciones ocurridas en los lugares donde nacimos y donde jugábamos de niños.
Historias cotidianas muy gratificantes, los personajes se sienten como los muchos que recordamos de nuestra propia vida.

[Kristiana · Rating 2 out of 5]

A Hundred Years and a Day is perhaps best experienced in the original language within the storytelling traditions of Japan, because translated into English and read within a Westernised culture, it just didn't work. With 34 stories in total I was expecting variation but Shibasaki's stories lacked this entirely. Many of the stories were retellings of the same trope - people meet in childhood, time passes, the landscape becomes unrecognisable, they return to discover what they once knew is gone. I'd say almost a third of the stories all followed this structure and this became very tedious. Moreover, the language, for the most part, was prosaic, with only a few moments of beautiful description and narration. Otherwise it was simplistic and, again, boring. Unfortunately, this is a collection of short stories I wouldn't recommend; even while I appreciate what Shibasaki was perhaps trying to do - capturing the mundane life's experiences of us all and finding the beauty and wonder in the little moments - the narration and variation just wasn't strong enough for the collection to be enjoyable.

[Ikkychann · Rating 4 out of 5]

As someone who has spent a huge part of her life living in the city, I’m no stranger to rapid change. Here, buildings are constantly knocked down and rebuilt; landscapes shift; memories fade in quick succession. Once you realize that a familiar structure has been demolished and replaced, you find that you can’t even recall what it used to look like. That feeling of disorientation—of standing in a place that looks the same and yet isn’t—is at the heart of Tomoka Shibasaki’s A Hundred Years and a Day .

The inexorable passage of time haunts every story in this collection. Shibasaki captures how time passes, how places transform, and how memory slips away, all through quiet slice-of-life vignettes. Her stories record the subtle but profound ways lives shift under the pressure of time. It’s a collection that feels quietly beautiful and reflective, mapping the intricate connection between time, place, and human attachment.

The engine of the book’s melancholy lies in the physical transformation of the urban landscape and the slow erasure of the past. Shibasaki doesn’t just note that cities change—she documents the process and the psychic residue of that change with the precision of a cartographer mapping loss.

The tenth tale, with its ramen shop named “House of the Future,” is a perfect case study. The shop is more than a business—it’s a temporal anchor, a stubborn relic from a world that’s being systematically dismantled. The irony of its name is striking: “House of the Future” is, in fact, a house of the past.

Shibasaki contrasts two opposing value systems. On one side is the land economy, embodied by the estate agents and “land sharks,” who treat land as an abstract commodity, its worth measured by “soaring”values and “exorbitant” sums—“a hundred million yen.” This world operates on speculation and projected profit. On the other side is the community economy, represented by the ramen shop’s customers—people “feeling stuck” and priced out by gentrification, whose lives unfold in the tangible present.

The shop owner’s disbelief that an apartment could cost so much “somewhere like here” encapsulates the violence of urban redefinition. The landscape isn’t just changing physically; its social and emotional fabric is being overwritten. Shibasaki exposes how this transformation isn’t a neutral process but an act of coercion. The “numerous visits” from the estate agent, the suspicious fire that renders the row houses “uninhabitable,” the “silent calls” meant to intimidate—all function as subtle but calculated acts of erasure. Even the community bonds that once sustained the neighborhood are manipulated as leverage: the bar and dress shop owners are “talked round” by appeals to family duty. Shibasaki shows how the very structure of human care is weaponized to dismantle the communities that depend on it.

The architectural “scar tissue” left behind becomes one of Shibasaki’s most powerful symbols. Physical change is never clean. The past lingers in traces—the “marks left by the roofs of the bar and dress shop” on the ramen shop’s walls are both literal and metaphorical scars. The wall becomes a palimpsest, a text where history remains visible as ghostly impressions of what once was. It is also a wound—evidence of loss—and a physical memory that the owner refuses to erase. His choice to leave the marks untouched turns them into a quiet monument, a daily reminder of what has been destroyed.

Here lies the core of Shibasaki’s vision: the new landscape is built upon the faint, visible scars of the old one. The physical transformation of space mirrors the erosion of memory and community.

This idea extends from the buildings to the people who once inhabited them. The old man in the same story is a masterpiece of quiet characterization. He isn’t a protagonist in the conventional sense—he’s part of the scenery, a human landmark. His ritual—carrying out his ripped stool, sitting, and offering a simple “Hello”—is woven into the fabric of the neighborhood.

His disappearance is written with devastating restraint. He doesn’t die dramatically; he simply vanishes. The community’s response—“When someone or something that should be there isn’t there any more, you kind of miss them”—captures the dull ache of loss without closure. The rumor that he “hadn’t moved away but had gone missing” intensifies the sense of quiet horror. His absence becomes a kind of presence, a void that signals the neighborhood’s unraveling.

Through him, Shibasaki links the erosion of the physical landscape to the disintegration of the social one. Gentrification doesn’t only displace buildings; it dismantles human ecosystems. The grocer’s story deepens this irony. After selling his land, he becomes a resident of a luxury penthouse—a living symbol of the new order. But in doing so, he severs his ties to the very community that once defined him. The other regulars, dispersed to “newly established commuter towns in the suburbs,” represent another kind of disappearance—displacement by distance and disconnection. The intimacy once found in the ramen shop cannot survive in the sterile new geography.

Shibasaki portrays this cycle of urban renewal with almost clinical cynicism: progress, stagnation, decay. “Shining white” buildings with “marble floors and gold-handled glass doors” rise, only to give way to halted construction sites, “half-finished concrete frames” left to weather for years, before turning into decaying blocks adorned with “Rooms Available” signs. The illusion of the “future” collapses under its own weight. The community it destroyed, meanwhile, was the only thing truly alive.

In this world of flux, the ramen shop owner’s refusal to sell becomes an act of resistance through stillness. He isn’t just clinging to a building—he’s preserving a timeline. His dark humor about death and fire reveals a kind of philosophical defiance: by accepting the worst, he becomes untouchable. His unchanging prices, his loyalty to his regulars, and his stubborn refusal to modernize make his shop a “rarity.” In the middle of a parking lot, it glows like a lighthouse—not guiding people through space, but through time. The marks on its walls no longer signify loss alone; they are now inscriptions of survival, proof that memory, even when battered, can still stand.

What I love most about Shibasaki’s writing is how she explores the transience and malleability of memory.

In the second story, “The tobacco shop on the corner was draped in wisteria…,” memory is anchored to a physical place. When that place vanishes, memory loses its foundation and begins to dissolve. The wisteria itself is a perfect metaphor—beautiful yet brief, blooming gloriously before disappearing for the rest of the year. Like memory, it lies dormant, invisible until the right conditions bring it back to life.

When the wisteria unexpectedly blooms white, the townspeople’s puzzled question—“Had those always been here?”—exposes how unreliable memory can be. It shifts, rewrites itself, and loses precision. The most devastating moment comes when “the following May, both the tobacco shop and the wisteria had disappeared from the corner.” The man’s memories of the shop, the old woman, the cigarette purchases—all tied to that physical space—are now unmoored. With no physical anchor, they drift away, becoming ghostly impressions with nowhere to belong.

If that story examines environmental erasure, the twenty-first tale, “Mizushima is injured...,” dives into psychological erasure. Mizushima’s memory of a traffic accident fades naturally over time—a slow, healing forgetfulness. But Yokota, the driver, represents something darker: a deliberate severance from memory. His declaration that he “had always wanted to become someone else” suggests a willful escape from guilt and selfhood itself. His memory loss feels less like trauma and more like reinvention.

The story’s ambiguity—did Mizushima really meet Yokota, or an imposter?—captures the instability of remembering. Memory is not a fixed archive; it’s a living ecosystem. When the landmarks of self or place are destroyed, the system collapses. Shibasaki reveals the quiet horror of realizing that our past isn’t a fixed landscape we can revisit, but a fragile narrative constantly rewritten by time and the mind’s need to protect itself.

As people confront the fragility of memory, community, and landscape, they often turn to tradition as a defense against change. Yet Shibasaki shows that tradition, too, is as mutable as the people who uphold it.

In the thirteenth tale, the tradition of naming male children with a specific kanji character in a bathhouse family begins as a rule shrouded in mystery—“nobody knew who first decided that that should be the case.” Its power lies not in reason but in the illusion of antiquity. For Shōtarō, this rule feels sacred, inseparable from his family’s identity. His justification—“it had just always been that way”—is both touching and tragic in its simplicity.

When Akiko challenges the tradition with logic and practicality, she exposes its fragility. Her reasoning isn’t rebellious, just rational: why cling to a rule that no longer serves its purpose? Masahiko’s reinterpretation—that the kanji marks profession, not lineage—marks a subtle but profound transformation. He doesn’t destroy the tradition; he redefines it. The outsider, Mitsuko, meanwhile, embraces the custom as quaint nostalgia, while Shōnosuke, the final bearer of the name, becomes an actor—a man who makes a living by shedding and adopting identities. His son’s dream-inspired name symbolizes a complete departure from inherited meaning.

Shibasaki pairs this story beautifully with “Daughter Tales II,” where workplace silence evolves across generations—from disciplined quiet, to radio-filled camaraderie, to a modern disbelief that such silence ever existed. What one generation enforces, another normalizes, and the next questions. There is no “correct” version of the past—only cycles of reinterpretation.

Through these interlinked tales—the bathhouse, the radio, the ramen shop, the wisteria—Shibasaki suggests that all human creations are vessels of meaning, and that meaning is transient. As people change, so do the stories they tell and the customs they keep. Her fiction whispers that nothing—place, memory, or tradition—truly endures unchanged. What persists is the act of remembering itself, however fragile and fleeting.

For anyone who’s ever watched their city change beyond recognition, A Hundred Years and a Day feels like both a lament and a gentle reminder that even in loss, something of us always remains. Even as places, people, and memories fade, their echoes never fully disappear—they simply change form.

[Sarah (unable to comment) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book of short stories was an interesting read for me. I don’t love it, but I don’t hate it either. The stories don’t intertwine or correlate with one another, but I didn’t feel confused about what was going on or who was who. It was fun to read about life in Japan and I loved how each story had a recurring theme: life moves on. Nothing stays the same, nobody is the same person they were yesterday, and what we do now affects not only the trajectory of our life but of those who we will never meet yet we relate to in spirit and circumstance. I enjoyed it. I may be generous by giving this book four stars, but that’s fine with me. I believe it deserves it and I want to read more of Shibasaki’s work. ☺️

I received an arc from Stone Bridge Press via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions and statements are my own.

#AHundredYearsandaDay #NetGalley

[Richard Derus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Real Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: This ground-breaking collection from Tomoka Shibasaki, author of the acclaimed novel Spring Garden, pushes the short story to a new level.

In these stories of human connection in a contemporary, alienated world, people come together to share pieces of their lives, then part. We meet the women who share a house after the outbreak of war before going their separate ways once it is over; the man who lives in a succession of rooftop apartments; the diverging lives of two brothers who are raised as latch-key kids by factory workers; the old ramen restaurant that endures despite the demolition of all surrounding buildings; people who watch a new type of spaceship lift off from a pier that once belonged to an island resort; and more.

These 34 tales from all over the planet have the compulsive power of news reports, narrated in a crisp yet allegorical style.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: There is a pattern I follow when reviewing short stories: I call it, for convenience, The Bryce Method after my old friend Bryce and his collection-spanning short summary followed by a very short summary and rating of the individual story habits from his blogging days.

Not going to work here.

Thirty-four stories in two hundred pages is problem one; not much between summary and spoiler. Two is these are stories that begin with something I'd call a spoiler: a summary-like paragraph set off from the text, which honestly took a half-star off my overall rating for off-puttingness. I think it's pointless, for these reasons, to use my old method as it would really add to the wall-to-wall spoilers. To avoid a close encounter with the shrieking Spoiler Stasi maniacs, allow me to review the gestalt of the collection for you.

It was fine. Nice prose, I'd say based on a long reading life with more than the usual number of translated works in many genres, quite gracefully translated. Plenty of well-woven-in clues to words that wouldn't translate. A solid, creditable job for a nice book of stories.

Does anything here do something that "pushes the short story to a new level"? No.

Does it really need to? No. Breathless copy does nothing good for this solid, well-crafted collection of short fiction mostly exploring the horrors of trying to communicate with actual other human beings in mutually satisfying connective ways. It's a collection full of fun, if weird, ways for that to fail. It has no central character or group, unlike that Ryu Murakami book I wasn't keen on that did mostly the same thing. It isn't set in one place like Pleasantville , that braided-stories novel I liked so well. In the off-kilter liminal spaces we're in for the whole collection, I'm most put in mind of the way Brian Evenson, in his uneasy style, makes the world feel. These are *not* horror, or even horror-adjacent, stories; instead, they partake of the weirdness and not-quite-ness of horror without any of the sillier trappings.

Polly Barton's ear for, say, how a wisteria vine relates to the wisteria vine it's been entwined with for goddesses only know how long, is the main vehicle for little minds like thee and me to get access to the core of longing and need in each of these very Japanese tales. Will we really know what's what? Not in my experience, and all the more fun to read because of it.

When I finished this read I had to sit a minute and look into my emotional reactor core to see what this bolus of new fuel was doing. I'm impressed that the way Author Shibasaki and her able translator, Polly Barton, never once threw a sucker punch. These stories deliver their intensely meant, unshielded radioactivity to you direct. It's not fussy; it's not overwrought; it's the high-quality story-ore, direct to your well-shielded reactor core to be processed.

I gave it a half-star less than perfect because, in some cases, the oddball opening paragraphs say too much even for me. That's hard to do!

[Megan Carr · Rating 3 out of 5]

Actual Rating: 3.5 stars, rounded down to 3

I think it’s inevitable that with a short story collection there will be stories you love and stories you hate- unsurprisingly that was also the case with ‘A Hundred Years and a Day’.

I originally placed this book on my TBR list as I’d read two stories from this collection that were published on the Granta website and was interested to see what the rest of the collection would be like. I also always add any translations by Polly Barton to my TBR list as I’ve enjoyed the majority of the works she’s translated. The collection is largely made up of on slice of life vignettes that revolve around the passage of time, focusing on seemingly mundane experiences. However, like with a lot of stories from Japanese authors, a surprising amount of beauty can be found in this mundane.

Often, the stories would cover a large span on time, with years or decades passing without mention- for some stories this wasn’t a problem, but for others it really didn’t work. I struggled with the first few stories in this collection, the narratives jumped forward in time quite abruptly and were written with an impersonal tone (often feeling like I was reading a list rather than a story), making it difficult both to follow the story and also to really care about the experiences being described. Towards the middle of the book however, I hit a run of stories that I really enjoyed (13, 15 and 17 being particular highlights). The tone of the writing changed- instead of the experiences being presented in a list-like fashion, they felt more like how a real person would recount their life and the flow was much better. From there, I had a much more positive experience with the book, enjoying the majority of the stories and finding them to be much better paced than the earlier stories- with the strongest stories being those where the length of time covered wasn’t too extreme or, where the length of time was extreme, multiple perspectives were used to tell the story.

If I could read this collection again for the first time, I’d definitely change my approach. I prefer to read books (even short story collections) in one or two sittings, but I think reading a few stories at a time and having some time to reflect on them is definitely a better approach for this book. I also wouldn’t read the stories in order, instead I’d read the small paragraphs at the beginning of each story and start by reading the ones that appealed to me most. I think with this collection you get the most enjoyment out of the stories that you can relate, but even those covering completely alien experiences can turn out to be extremely enjoyable and, somehow, exactly what you needed to read.

Thank you to Stone Bridge Press | MONKEY and NetGalley for the chance to read the DRC of this book.

[Ale · Rating 4 out of 5]

ITA
Questo libro è una raccolta sperimentale di 34 brevi racconti dell’autrice Tomoka Shibasaki.
Il tema che ricorre spesso sono storie di luoghi e persone. Luoghi che con il tempo cambiano fisicamente (guerre, riqualificazione…) ma che restano uguali nella memoria delle persone. In un racconto in particolare mi ha colpito che il personaggio per ricordarsi del posto, una stazione dove passa di tanto in tanto un treno, apre le finestre per sentire l’odore e ricordarsi ancora meglio.
In alcune storie, invece si parte dalla storia di una persona e un luogo fa da “testimone” per parlare della storia di un’altra persona.
Alcune storie le ho trovate noiose, altre con un finale sospeso, alcune non le ho capite (colpa mia sicuramente), con altre ho riso di gusto: sono carini i nipponici.
Ho prenotato questo libro principalmente per la copertina, quei cartoni mi facevano venire in mente dei palazzi e dopo aver letto il libro penso possa essere una interpretazione, ma chissà.
Ultima cosa andate su youtube o spotify e ascoltate il brano Kawachi Ondo.
Ho ricevuto una copia gratuita. Questa recensione contiene la mia opinione ed è pubblicata liberamente.

ENG
This book is an experimental collection of 34 short stories by author Tomoka Shibasaki.
The theme that recurs often are stories about places and people. Places that change physically over time (wars, redevelopment...) but remain the same in people's memories. In one story in particular it struck me that the character in order to remember the place, a station where a train passes from time to time, opens the windows to smell it and remember even better.
In some stories, however, we start with one person's story and a place acts as a “witness” to talk about another person's story.
Some of the stories I found boring, some with a suspenseful ending, some I didn't understand (my fault surely), with others I laughed heartily: they are cute Japanese people.
I booked this book mainly because of the cover, those cartoons reminded me of buildings and after reading the book I think it may be an interpretation, but who knows.
Last thing, go to youtube or spotify and listen to the song Kawachi Ondo.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

[SpicyJollof · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you asked me what I would rate this book when I first started reading it, I would say at least 4 stars and above.
Now I’m not so sure.
The central theme of a hundred years and a day is passing of time, changing of environment and choices we make. It spans over decades and different countries. The countries, towns and characters are nameless. This is a choice by the author that I find interesting. It’s hard to get attached to characters that are nameless and not described. Man, woman, child.

I think how you feel about this book is mood based. When I started reading this book I was sad, stressed and extremely anxious. This book was sort of an escape and I was given a peek as if I was a passer-by into others lives. The world was bigger than I was.

Now? My main criticism is that it’s repetitive. Sure, it’s a collection of 34 short stories, some even as short as a page. But It’s easier read as a story a day not all in one go. Each story features different characters yes but it’s like I’m reading the same story over and over again. Perhaps this is due to the central theme.

I had honestly seen similarity between this book and sweet bean paste due to its depiction the flow of time and seasons. But I take it back lol.

I think, I think if I had continued to read this book in that state of mind. My review would have gone entirely in a different direction. But I can’t deny that I started to lose interest half way through the book which made me extremely sad.

I think the book should’ve been shortened to 12 to 14 stories instead or perhaps a loss in translation plays a major role. .

A high schooler, an office worker, a restaurant owner, a begger each story is told from a different perspective - multiple perspectives in fact and at times it skips months, years even decades ahead. I enjoyed it because the book sort of highlights how we’re just a point in time. My favourite story is story 32. I think it’s due to the warmth between the characters in this story.

I would rate this book a solid 3.25 stars. If you like slice of life books, then this book is definitely for you.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the arc in exchange for an honest review.

[J Earl · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Hundred Years and a Day, by Tomoka Shibasaki and translated by Polly Barton, is a collection of short stories (perhaps vignettes might better describe them) where the characters are nameless and the locations, the villages and buildings, serve as additional characters.

It is true of all books that some people will like what the author does and some won't. Many times, no matter which view you hold, you don't immediately grasp why someone would feel the other way. For this book, I understand, even though I don't feel the same way, why many will be turned off or simply "not interested." The events are largely nonevents, in the way that most events in our own lives aren't anything big but may well stay with us and affect us for years. So readers wanting a straightforward story, the common "beginning, middle, end," will resist this one. Just please, as a former teacher, don't make it sound like only those stories are "proper." If a story doesn't work for you, that is fine. But the implication with the term "proper" is that whatever is done differently is "improper." If a story works, then it was done properly for that story. If it is how the writer wants to tell the story, then it was done properly for that writer. If it didn't work for you, then it didn't work for you. Subjective taste is not objective fact.

If you enjoy slice-of-life vignettes that may well cover an entire lifetime in just a few pages, that leave room for you to think about not just the story but your own life, then you will be richly rewarded. Don't read this as quickly as you will be tempted, let each story sit with you for a while. Maybe just five or ten minutes, maybe a day, you might be surprised at the insight some of them will offer on your own life. Change is constant, even when we aren't aware of it. Returning to any place, or any person for that matter, can be startling because of what is changed, and what hasn't. These are some of the things this volume will give you the chance to reflect on, if you are a reflective type of reader/thinker.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.

[Dima · Rating 4 out of 5]

34 short stories describing daily life of mostly Japanese protagonists, most (if not all) highlighting the theme of "life goes on", and the futility of struggling against it. None of the stories stand out as such, and nothing here is out of the ordinary, but, taken together, they convey a certain sense of "Japanese-ness" that is often elusive elsewhere. The pared down writing style helps with this a lot - most characters and places don't have names, and the time of writing is rarely made clear. The reader has to focus on the events in each story, and their deterministic conclusion.

I started reading the book dreading it, frankly, given the reviews online. However, as I went from story to story I couldn't help but be drawn by the atmospheric writing, and the world the author creates through it. In this world, while individual events can be sad, and specific situations bleak, the minute one steps back and looks at it all from afar, "life goes on". There is something optimistic, beautiful, and powerful in such a narrative - things go on, and, yes, life can be hard and confusing, but time erodes much of the sharpness of events, leaving just the perpetuity of being. The more the stories progress the more the meta narrative gains shape and becomes increasingly philosophically poignant.

I also absolutely loved the story titles - each representing its own microcosm, and, often, more powerful and to-the-point than the stories they precede.

The author, however, can come across as trying too hard to tell a broader story, and misses making the stories themselves be engaging. In other words - while I loved the broader context of the collection, most stories, in their own individual rights, failed to impress.

Highly recommended to short story lovers (even if it is just to see what one can make of a well planned collection), and lovers of Japanese literature and culture more broadly.

My thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an early copy of this book in return for an honest review.

[Nicki Markus · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read A Hundred Years and a Day as an ARC and had some initial troubles because, while I could read the text in Adobe Digital Editions on my PC, when I added the book to my eReader all I got were blank pages. I therefore had to read in bits and pieces whenever I was on the PC and had time, so it was a disrupted reading experience which naturally did affect my enjoyment and needs to be taken into account as I give my review. There were some stories in this collection that I particularly enjoyed; however, there were others I struggled to connect with. I also wasn't keen on the fact that the title of each story essentially summarised the plot, as I felt this took away from discovering the story as it progressed. On the plus side, there is a delightful 'visual' appeal to these tales; you can really get an amazing sense of the scenes from the prose. I think Shibasaki sets the scenes really well and manages to squeeze a lot of content into the short word counts of each piece, which is a great skill. If you are a short story fan, I am sure you will find something to like in this collection, and even though it wasn't completely for me, I was still glad of the opportunity to experience this work. I am giving it 3.5 stars.

I received this book as a free eBook ARC via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.

[Angie F. · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars rounded up.

A Hundred Years and a Day is a collection of 34 short stories written by Tomoka Shibasaki and translated by Polly Barton. It is being published on February 25, 2025.

This collection of loosely connected short stories is woven together with several common threads: nostalgia, a search for identity and community, and a slight speculative element. At a point in one of the stories, Japanese fiction is described as where "reality blends with the world of dreams" and this is an apt description of the collection as a whole.

There are several unusual elements present here too. Many of the short stories do not have a title but are instead numbered and start with a bolded description. As the title suggests, the stories jump around a lot in time, so it takes a while to determine where in time each story is situated. Many characters are also referred to by physical or other descriptions rather than names, so that took some time to get used to as well.

These stories will leave the reader with a lot to think about. Many questions are posed and few answers given, so I would recommend this collection to those who appreciate Japanese fiction and are okay with ambiguity, nostalgia and an undercurrent of anxiety.

Thank you to Stone Bridge Press via NetGalley for making this collection available for early review. All opinions are my own.

[Ashley · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Hundred Years and a Day by Tomoka Shibasaki, translated from the Japanese by Polly Burko is one of most unique story collections I’ve read in a while.

Sometimes when collections skew experimental, I find myself losing some enjoyment to the extra brainpower it takes me to keep up—certainly not the case here.

Yet again, Polly doesn’t steer me wrong. Truthfully, the cover & Polly’s name are what pushed me to give this one a try. The more translated lit I read, the more I learn to trust my favorite translators’ tastes. Polly is easily one of my auto-buy translators.

Do you have a translator you seek out? Lizzie Davis Kevin Gerry Dunn & Emma Ramadan - translator keep Polly company on my list (so far)!

I recommend this one to fans of translated lit, unique structuring in story collections and/or lovers of indie presses.
@stonebridgepress is SUCH a great source for Japanese literature!! & I’m so grateful for this #gifted finished copy, thank you bunches 💌

[Shari · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a quiet yet lovely book. One the one hand, it can seem like nothing much is happening in these stories, but on the other, everything happens. There are no cinematic storylines here, but each story is the story of a life or lives--ordinary people moving through days, weeks, months, years. Time passes. There are connections and disconnections between people, people and objects, or people and places. Memories resurface. Things change. People change. Places change. Relationships change. As they do for all of us. The excellent writing is very matter-of-fact. I stopped at times to admire sentences and descriptions. For instance, one character is described as feeling like he was disconnected from his own life and leasing space in a different person's body. The stories are straightforward, but no less powerful for that.

I've not read any of Shibasaki's previous work, but I definitely want to now. In some ways, these stories reminded me a bit of the kinds of short stories Lydia Davis writes, so if you're a fan of hers, or of short stories in general, I can highly recommend this collection. This is a book that will stay with me for a long time and I'm delighted to have read it.

Thanks to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for a DRC.

[Dillon Allen-Perez · Rating 4 out of 5]

In these vignettes and histories, protagonists do simple and complicated things. They talk with family about funny things that happened at their mundane jobs. They meet new friends in school and bump into them years later. They pursue ambitious dreams in the face of gentrification. They flee industrial society completely in the face of global conflict. It all happens in a constant tone, all of humanity an interconnected coming and going.

Shibasaki manages to fit thirty-four distinct stories into a slim book. Though each tale averages only about six pages, they suggest much more depth than what is presented on the surface. At times touching on four generations of a family, the bird's eye view narration stretches time into a shape that forces the reader to reflect upon how we each use our own short time in the universe. How would someone tell your life story in six pages?

I will admit it took me a few stories to get into the style of exceedingly long titles and minimally short stories. Eventually, it clicked. I was in. Naturally, some stories will resonate with the reader more than others. But, it's worth a read to find your favorite of the thirty-four.


[I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review]

[Yoshay Lindblom · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC
Translated from the Japanese by Polly Barton, A Hundred Years and a Day is a collection of 34, concise, fragmented stories that explore the intricate ties between humans and the places they inhabit in an otherwise disconnected world. It captures the fleeting nature of movement—people drifting from one place to another, sometimes leaving behind traces of themselves, other times passing through unnoticed, only to return and discover the deep, often unspoken bonds they share with these spaces.

The book also contemplates the interplay between motion and stillness across time, where towns and villages emerge as silent, secondary characters, preserving the echoes of those who once lived within them. People come and go, but places remain, steadfastly holding the memories and histories of those who have passed through. It is a poignant meditation on belonging, memory, and the enduring presence of place in our lives.

[Aria · Rating 4 out of 5]

Actual Rating: 3.5 stars

Also on Snow White Hates Apples.

A picture is worth a thousand words, but what of words trying to capture moments? Words that attempt to encapsulate the essence of something aside from that one fleeting second a photo will capture?

A fitting example of this would, in my opinion, be A Hundred Years and A Day . This collection of short stories has no conventional plot or character development. Here, time and space are more abstract. Years can pass within a sentence, warping space along with it.

As such, it’s no wonder that the short stories are all concise pieces, stripped down to only the essentials needed to recreate specific moments. Moments, which involve the character’s personal reveries, the changes that follow the flow of time, human connections, memory and nostalgia. For those who prefer a little more meat to their reads, this stylistic choice may leave you wanting, wishing that each piece would read more like a lived and living memory than a summary — more so since the title further summarises the already sparse short stories.

Yet, preference aside, it’s undeniable that this stylistic choice is what strongly imbues the entire collection with the everpresent feeling of how fleeting our lives truly are in the face of time and that inconsequential or consequential events can persist through memory that’s easily reliable or unreliable. Using a different stylistic approach may not yield the same results and this collection would then, not be what it is right now.

A Hundred Years and A Day is an invitation to indulge in your reveries and recollections. To stop, let words help your mind form moments that may be similar to ones you’ve experienced before and rediscover that what was once brushed off could’ve been meaningful no matter how ordinary.

Thank you so much Stone Bridge Press for sending me a copy of this in exchange for an honest review! A Hundred Years and A Day by Tomoka Shibasaki will be available at all good bookstores.

[Afra Binte Azad · Rating 4 out of 5]

"A Hundred Years and a Day" accommodates a remarkable collection of 34 fractions, each capturing divergent facets of human life. Despite the compact length, these pieces bring a profoundly emotional and philosophical lens to our human experience as a whole. What stands out most is the juxtaposition of emotions and how beautifully balanced they are. These stories are infused with a sense of nostalgia and a poignant reflection, all materialized with a delicious nonchalance and equally immersive writing. "A Hundred Years and a Day" beautifully weaves the symphony of human experiences.



Thank you, NetGalley and Stone Bridge Press for the copy of this book.

[Stacey Churchill · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Hundred Years and a Day is a collection of short stories that captures the essence of human connection through the Japanese literature. Each story stands alone, giving a variety of characters and situations that reflect the relationships in everyday life.

While the theme focuses on human connection, I am use to reading Murakami and so accustomed to the surreal and bizarre narratives. This collection is a lot more grounded and straightforward.

One aspect I didn’t like, is the introductory paragraph for each story. These intros sometimes feel like spoilers.

Overall the collection offers a nice exploration of human connections with cultural insights.

[RecycledWords · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Hundred Years and a Day offers 34 very brief glimpses into the lives of others. The titles of the stories are more of a quick synopsis with the stories then fleshing out a few more details.

In a way, this collection felt more like a series of ideas for stories given in short form. There was a definite theme of human connection (or lack thereof in some cases) but the stories were so short that I didn't feel able to connect with them on an emotional level. This was nonetheless an interesting piece of work and I wouldn't avoid reading more by Shibasaki in future.

Thanks to NEtgalley and the publisher for the ARC. All opinions are my own.

[Bailey Chambers · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unfortunately, this feels like one of those books that got lost in translation (through no fault of the translator). Japanese is notoriously different to translate into English, and I'm assuming that is what is to blame for the somewhat stilted language and dialogue. I found this collection to be repetitive in theme and voice. None of the characters were undisguisable from each other in how they spoke or thought, and the theme of "we get older and things change" was the main one, but the stories were all too short to really explore it. By the 25% mark I feel like I got everything I was going to get from this collection, and I was right.