The Enlightenment of Katzuo Nakamatsu

by Augusto Higa Oshiro, Jennifer Shyue (Translator)

Katzuo Nakamatsu is at sea after being forced out of his job as a literature professor without warning. He retreats into flânerie, musing with imaginary interlocutors, roaming the streets of Lima, and reciting the poems of Martín Adán. Slowly, to the “steady beat of his reptile feet,” Nakamatsu arranges his quiet ceremony of farewell. With an electric lunacy, he spruces himself up with a pinstripe tie, tortoiseshell glasses, and wooden cane, taking on the costume of an old man he knew as a child, hoping to grasp that man’s tenacious Japanese identity. Like a logic puzzle, Enlightenment calibrates Augusto Higa Oshiro’s own entangled Japanese-Peruvian identity. Reminiscent of Kurasawa’s film Ikiru, Enlightenment emerges from a dark and labyrinthine mindscape, unraveling toward sublime disintegration.

Genres: Fiction, Japan, Novels, Spanish Literature, Contemporary, Latin American, Japanese Literature

105 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Augusto Higa Oshiro (b. 1946, Lima) studied Peruvian and Latin American literature at the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos. His publications include the story collections Que te coma el tigre (1977), La casa de Albaceleste (1987), and Okinawa existe (2013); the memoir Japón no da dos oportunidades (1994); and the novels Final del Porvenir (1992), La iluminación de Katzuo Nakamatsu (2008), Gaijin (2014), and Saber matar, saber morir (2014). He is the recipient of the Asociación Peruano Japonesa’s Premio José Watanabe Varas for prose (2012) and the Cámara Peruana del Libro’s Premio de Novela Breve (2014), and has been recognized for his contributions to culture by Peru’s Ministry of Culture.

Reviews

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

You’ve no doubt heard the quote, sometimes attributed to Thomas Szasz, about insanity being a sane response to an insane world. In The Enlightenment of Katzuo Nakamatsu (Archipelago Books, 2023), author Augusto Higa Oshiro takes this claim further. In an insane world, madness is more than a sane response to unbearable conditions. Madness is enlightenment.

Katzuo Nakamatsu is a widower living in Lima, Peru. While out walking one day, he is accosted by a premonition of his own death. Shortly thereafter he abruptly loses his job at the local university. An all-pervading fatalism sets in as he wanders the streets of Lima, reflecting on the trials of his immigrant forebears. Among them is his father’s friend Etsuko Untén, the spiritual double of Peruvian poet Martin Adán. Nakamatsu adopts Untén’s eccentric attire and righteous will as he closes in on his own inevitable end...

Read the full review at Blathering Struldbrugs

[Joseph Schreiber · Rating 4 out of 5]

This hypnotic novel traces the descent into madness of a retired professor in Lima, Peru and explores the slow and difficult integration of Japanese labourers brought into the harsh, unwelcoming country in the early twentieth century. A brief, mesmerizing, but grim novella.
A longer review can be found here: https://roughghosts.com/2023/06/15/i-...

[Judy · Rating 5 out of 5]

102nd book read in 2025

This was my November read from my big piles of books received from Archipelago Books, to which I have a subscription. I get approximately 15 books a year from them and try to read at least one a month, but I fall ever behind.

I recently found that I began that subscription in 2016. I am currently reading books I received from them in 2023, so I guess I am at least somewhat keeping up. My intention for taking out the subscription was to have books translated from other languages besides English, set in other countries besides the United States, chosen for me. (It is a bit overwhelming to try to choose for myself.) My intention for reading such books is to broaden my knowledge of the world. Reading books written in other countries does more for me than reading the news.

Katzuo Nakamatsu is a descendant of Japanese people who emigrated to Peru, just after WWII. He did what immigrants are supposed to do: get educated, learn the language, find a profession and assimilate. He is a professor, 58 years old, lives alone. One day on a walk through a park, he is struck by emotional terror and begins his descent into madness.

It is not a spoiler to say that Katzuo does find enlightenment. After all we are told so in the title of the novella. But reading about his journey was a harrowing experience as the writing is powerful in its realism and emotional intensity. I felt I was with Katzuo on every page.

I had also been gradually making my way through Joseph Campbell’s classic study of the hero’s journey: The Hero With a Thousand Faces. As I read this novella side by side with Campbell’s words I realized more deeply than ever that the immigrant is on a hero’s or heroine’s journey. Thankfully there are writers who can put these journeys into words that reach readers.

[Vicho]

Qué genial es cuando no esperas absolutamente nada de un libro, incluso tienes prejuicios contra él, pero al explorarlo resulta que es una obra maestra. Primero me sincero, no es el típico libro que leo, o del que pueda tener interés en comprar; sobre todo al tener como protagonista a un nikkei y estar ambientado en Perú, pues es el ambiente donde he crecido... no me aportaría nada nuevo.
A pesar de todo esto, no me arrepiento haberlo leído y constituye un verdadero honor y orgullo que el autor sea de la colectividad peruano japonesa.
Posee un estilo distinto, metafórico, no es la típica historia del héroe quien debe cumplir una misión. El autor nos adentra en la mente del protagonista, un sujeto quien está perdiendo la razón.
Me encantó como la narración cambia de enfoque de manera sutil, y pasa de un narrador impersonal a uno con nombre y apellido. Siento que el protagonista es la personificación de los avatares de los inmigrantes japoneses en el Perú, de todo aquel que alguna vez (Como yo de vez en cuando) se siente un extranjero en su propio país. Es un libro que merece relecturas.
Lo único negativo que puedo encontrar al libro es que debido a que contiene muchas referencias peruanas y nikkeis, a nivel internacional podría (Intuyo) llegar a ser un poco difícil de entender por lo que sugeriría para una próxima edición, colocar pies de página.

[Phyllis · Rating 5 out of 5]

RTC, but wow - lush & spiralling descent into madness, with layers upon literary layers, in just 96 pages and in translation from Spanish, set in Lima, Peru, with a nikkei Japanese-Peruvian protagonist.

[Miguel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mucho amor a esta novelita que recuerda a Sostiene Pereira de Tabucchi.
Nakamatsu vaga por la calles limeñas en una búsqueda de la belleza que ha dejado de poder deleitar, aceptando la vejez e inapelable muerte, cuestionando su identidad marginal mientras recuerda a su difunta mujer.

El protagonista tiene ataques de enajenación que son voces en su interior, ecos de su infancia y de la experiencia de la comunidad japonesa en Perú. Una experiencia personificada por Etsuko Undén, amigo de su padre, que enfrentaba con altanería los ataques de discriminación, orgulloso de su nación.

Esas intervenciones son lo más interesante de la novela. Episodios de la historia de la comunidad nipona protagonizada por el propio Etsuko: la llegada a Perú, los trabajos forzosos en el monte, fugas, su primer negocio, la persecución y violencia sufrida durante la Guerra del Pacífico y la larga espera del barco que creía que vendría a buscarlos algún día, enviado por el Emperador, para traerlos a su patria.

Nakamatsu, creo, sufre ese descenso a la locura como resultado de una envidia hacia ese personaje del pasado, que no dudaba de su identidad y, además, la mostraba con orgullo.

[katm]

a really beautiful translation by jennifer shyue - i loved reading the translator's note and the parts about the physical experience of translating this book, the units of language, and how she came across oshiro's work

[eris · Rating 2 out of 5]

i’ll begin by saying that oshiro’s prose is stunning - it reads like poetry, juxtaposing images from history and present time, from internal life to a bustling city. the shifting of emotions on the city streets reminded me a fair bit of dostoevsky, but ultimately that also meant the whole writing style felt a bit unbearable. the sentence structure is complex and often difficult to follow. almost every sentence is nearly a paragraph long which is draining to read. lastly, while the content touches on important topics such as immigration histories and death, its use of stereotypes of “asiatic temperament” and occasional slurs made this an off putting read.

[Schwarzer_Elch · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hay dos cosas que me enamoran de la literatura de Augusto Higa Oshiro. Por un lado, está el hecho de que, a través de sus textos, reivindica la importancia de los nissei, grupo que, al igual que muchos otros, tiene poca presencia en nuestras ficciones, a pesar de su rol fundamental en la configuración de la sociedad peruana contemporánea. Por otro lado, la prosa del autor se caracteriza por un tono melancólico a través del cual Higa Oshiro reflexiona sobre la humanidad, sus zonas de luz y, sobre todo, sus zonas oscuras, ya sean estas colectivas o individuales. Por eso, leer “La iluminación de Katzuo Nakamatsu” me dejó muy satisfecho, pues encontré mucho de los dos puntos mencionados. Entonces, ¿por qué no le pongo cinco estrellas? Porque por momentos me resultó una lectura un poco lenta. Tengo entendido que esta es la primera novela del autor, quien, hasta antes de su publicación, se había desarrollado exclusivamente en el ámbito cuentístico. De ser así, el cambio es evidente pues, al tratarse de un texto más largo, el ritmo cae por momentos.

[birdbassador · Rating 4 out of 5]

when paul auster characters become flâneurs who succumb to madness within a city and society that is likewise mad, they don't really seem to enjoy it. but prof. nakamatsu here gets to put on some cool vintage clothes and reflect on poetry and history and, hey, it could be worse.

[endrju · Rating 3 out of 5]

I know very little about the history of Peru and absolutely nothing about Japanese migration to the country living on the other side of the planet as I do and having more than enough on my plate by paying attention to what's going on in my country. So when an opportunity to find out more about the topics I know almost nothing about arises I jump to grab it. This novel did a fairly good job at giving me an idea of what it was to be a Japanese at certain points in time in Peru, like during the WWII, and showing the aftermath that is still felt among the contemporary members Japanese diaspora such as Katzuo Nakamatsu. I can see how unresolved historical trauma can lead to individual breakdown, I do live in a post-socialist post-war perpetually transitional society after all. However, I wasn't really convinced by the novel. The narrative felt rushed, perhaps it felt so because of my unfamiliarity with the history, but Nakamatsu's sudden start toward the "enlightenment" felt rather unmotivated. On the other hand, I never went mad in my life so maybe that's how things go with that.

As a side note, I read this one right after Austral, and I'm sitting now and wondering at the humongous complexity of South American histories, and I haven't even scratched the surface.

[Bella Azam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.
Tw: suicide attempt, violence, depression

This was a breathtakingly beautiful book, written in such a complex dizzying way that you will fall into the story and the character Katzuo Nakamatsu so much more. It was both sad and heartbreaking to read. Its certainly not for those who cant stand the slow pacing and the excruciatingly detailed writing but this was an amazing read. Learning on someone's thoughts especially a schizophrenic character can be tough to consume but it shed light on their side of story, given a place for them speak, to listen and to befriend.

[Regan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I never managed to adjust to the claustrophobic, paragraph-long and repetitive rhythms of the sentences here, but I admired Oshiro’s poetic prose/Shyue’s translation, the way it meanders and descends, nonetheless. “When death comes, it will have your eyes.”

[Maricarmen Panizzo · Rating 4 out of 5]

“La iluminación de Katsuo Nakamatsu” gran libro de Augusto Higa, que nos lleva de la mano por la vida de Katsuo y su devenir en un espiral de decadencia y locura interior qué transita por una Lima que acompaña la pulsión de muerte que late a lo largo del texto y que hace que no se suelte.
El relato de la experiencia de un descendiente japonés en un momento determinado de su vida y la historia nacional ilumina episodios de racismo, discriminacion y maltrato hacia aquellos compatriotas que no es extraño a la forma en que nos hemos relacionado entre nosotros, eso también lo hace universal.
Tuvimos la suerte en mi Club de Lectura de contar con la presencia y amable disposición para una reflexión profunda en torno al libro hizo de esta experiencia un regalo inolvidable.

[Sebastian Uribe Díaz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Intensa novela corta de Augusto HIga. Un descenso a los infiernos del personaje que presta su nombre al título, a través de una narrativa, potente en el aspecto de atrapar al lector en una atmósfera lúgubre y marginal. Los recovecos de una ciudad narrados con maestría por la pluma de este gran autor. Y la revelación de un tópico muy poco tratado en nuestra literatura, como lo fue el sufrimiento de los inmigrantes japoneses durante la II GM (algo parecido a lo que hizo Juan Gabriel Vasquez en "Los informantes"), pero entremezclado con el drama existencial de un viejo profesor universitario, viudo y solitario. Recomendable

[Lady Clementina ffinch-ffarowmore · Rating 4 out of 5]

My thanks to Archipelago Books (Steerforth Press) for a review copy of this book via Edelweiss.

The Enlightenment of Katzuo Nakamatsu is a story of identity and loss, roots and community, of a man dealing with past, present, and much else in the face of impending death. Our story opens in the Parque de la Exposición in Lima, amidst a serene and beautiful scene

the flowers were graceful and lovely; he walked towards the carp pond … the opaque light stayed the same and the sakura branches continued gleaming exquisitely

It is one which with its Japanese sensibilities and impression, amidst a park in Lima captures what our main character is. Katzuo Nakamatsu

… was after all the son of Japanese people, a nisei, almost a foreigner…

But amidst this seemingly peaceful scene and time, Nakamatsu is suddenly gripped by a fear, a foreboding:

And in that fragment of afternoon, from that imperturbable beauty, Nakamatsu noticed, sprang a death drive, a vicious feeling, like the Sakura were transmitting extinction, a shattering, destruction.

This realisation sends him off wandering on familiar paths—walking around the city, meeting and chatting with a few old friends and acquaintances, saying his goodbyes to those of his family who have left the world before him.

… his labyrinthine meanderings happened on known territory, his very existence splintered into setting she had traversed thousands of times, navigating known waters, as if the world was nothing more than a reiteration of itself.

But on these meanderings, there is a recurring feeling, a fear—voices, sounds, the feeling of being watched, of someone snickering. As we walk these roads with him, we also learn different parts of his story, the people who were and are part of it, the projects that has been working on but which have all remained incomplete. As he rambles on, these wanderings take on a more almost frenzied tone, he is absorbed by two figures who have always been of importance to him, the Peruvian poet Martín Adán and Etsuko Untén, a man who was among the Japanese immigrants to Peru with Nakamatsu’s father—both remarkable personalities (even if with questionable morals). He starts to take on their characteristics, walk the same paths that they would have, bury himself in the most dissipated and squalid quarters—unravelling as he does so; lost yet in search of something, but what?

And as we journey with him, some of the dilemmas that plague him, the facets of his life, are revealed. Nakamatsu is at this time ‘fifty-eight, depleted, old’, and he feels his age keenly, especially observing youth. But more relevant is his sense of alienness, not belonging even though Peru has always been home:

all those places their people were alien to him, they constituted those in his vicinity, the neutral zone where he deposited his gaze, and he was forbidden from joining, and being like them with their legs, their eyes, their arms.

But these are really the bare surfaces in this evocative novella which in this excellent translation from Spanish by Jennifer Shyue draws one right into Nakamatsu’s world, experiencing all those fears, the confusion (the sense of dreaminess and wooziness), the feeling of loss as he unravels. The translation is so well done, and the writing so beautiful, impactful and vivid, that one doesn’t realise one is not reading in the language it was originally written in.

Nakamatsu’s wanderings, his search is at one level personal, the feeling of not belonging and of never belonging; the relationships with family and community; the search for beauty, for love perhaps?; the search for identity; his feeling of being just lost is so well captured:

He was not resigned to fate, and those crucifixes, the pale gleam of those images and confessionals remained undisturbed, floating in tranquillity, in the illusion of hope, as he asked himself what he had done with his life, how much at fault he was if he felt undone, unsociable, and reality itself continued to be a no man’s land.

But it also turns on to be a broader one, of the past, of history.

This is a beautiful and complex little book, throwing up aspects with readers can connect with and others which one learns about as well. A book that was well worth reading even if it left me with some whys that I felt I didn’t get the answers to.

p.s. For those familiar with Lima, there is the added pleasure of walking the known and unknown streets of the city.

4.25 stars

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher Archipelago for an advance copy of this novel on a man suddenly lost, who wanders the streets of Lima, Peru, trying to find his thoughts and himself.

Purpose is something many of us think that we have, but purpose is also something that can be easily stripped from us. For many it is a job, a job that might not not be liked, but it gives a person a reason to awaken, to get ready for the day, and to come home from. Maybe it is writing a book or a biography. This give a a person purpose. Until they have to be completed. Or maybe they are always there, as something to be gotten to, when a person has more time. Without purpose humans can get lost. That purpose was more inertia it kept the organism moving, but really where was it going. This realization, that life was purposeless, and now, inertialess, that can hurt. That can leave one lost. And wandering. The Enlightenment of Katzuo Nakamatsu by Augusto Higa Oshiro, translated from Spanish by Jennifer Shyue is the story of a man who suddenly one day finds himself at a loss, and tries to find himself by wandering thinking thoughts of lost people, places, and what might have been.

Katzuo Nakamatsu does not want to go to work this day. The school he teaches at is annoying him slightly, and he is having a hard time getting the energy up to go. Nakamatsu steps out, has a nice meal, that is interrupted by gunshots, as a boy robber is killed by a street merchant. Bumping into a friend, Nakamatsu asks what is the best way one can kill himself. Later he asks to borrow a gun to protect himself from the dangerous streets of Lima, Peru, a gun which is given over no questions asked. Arriving at work at his school Nakamatsu is informed that he is at the age of retirement, and the school is doing so. Nakamatsu does not take this well, and loses some time in arguing, threatening and having a fit. Colleagues try to calm him down, but inside Nakamatsu can hear them laughing at him, something that Nakamatsu is starting to notice happening all of the time, along with the sounds of birds that no one else seems to hear. Nakamatsu plans to work on a novel and short story, or biography on the poet Martin Adán but this comes to naught as he can not concentrate, and wanders the neighborhood at all hours, sleep also eluding him. Nakamatsu's thoughts turn to his long dead wife, growing up Japanese in Lima, and other thoughts, as he wanders, looking for a solution to his thoughts.

This is a short novel, but is a novel that hits on a lot of levels. Being lost, and adrift is something that is common to most people in the age of Covid. Things that we counted on, not being there anymore, along with a sense of mental security. Nakamatsu is an outsider, though his entire life seems to have been lived in Lima, and without his job, or wife he has no rudder to help him keep a course in the river that is life. There are many meetings, odd events, and ways to spend time. However it really is the inner life of Nakamatsu that is the best part of this novel. I'm not sure if I liked Nakamatsu, but I understood him, and why he felt so outside of everything. The writing is really good, and has lost nothing in translation that I can see, or even feel. There are scenes that in other hands would make up entire books, but here are just a paragraph, and that is enough. This is a profile of a person we pass everyday, or even worse, used to know, but haven't kept up with. A person that we always go, oh yeah, and aren't really surprised at what the fates have for them.

Not an easy book, but a very well written novel about life, and not having much of one, and of a person trying to make the best of it. I really enjoyed the writing, and felt a lot of emotions while reading, and after I finished. This is the only title I have read from Augusto Higa Oshiro, but I know it will not be the last. I book that asks a lot of questions from the reader, and changes how we look at events in our own lives.

[Thomas Goddard · Rating 4 out of 5]

What to say, what to say?

I follow a blog called roughghosts and in a cosmic coincidence, they posted about this book on June 15th. I bought a copy of The Enlightenment on June 1st. Along with about four other Archipelago titles (I have an addiction to their square format, I need help!)

It made me totally thrilled to learn that this blog I respect quite a lot had posted about a book I’d independently selected - it is like your university English lecturer saying you have good taste in books!

So I obviously had to try to ignore the post, read the book and then read the post to see if I was smart enough to ‘get’ the book and if so how much - or should I just throw myself in the sea? We shall see.

https://roughghosts.com/2023/06/15/i-...

I haven’t read a book that takes words and makes them so damn stunning, whilst simultaneously being one of the most depressing books I’ve read. Not in a long time. Not since Fernando Pessoa’s The Book of Disquiet. And that tracks because they’re both poets. In places it was quite a triggering read for that reason because it really captures that hollow feeling at the core of being human.

I got a lot of biblical vibes with this one. The Nebuchadnezzar parallel. Maybe that’s just me.

That coupled with the introduction of wildness, the madness of birds. I loved it. A really nice read. A little bleak, but I was in the mood for it. I think it could probably do with a more interesting plot overall, but this is more an experience read really.

I’m not writing an essay on the book, but I did get real suggestions of depth here that mean that I’ll probably revisit it again in future. I love finding books I can be sure will offer more with each read!

[Kyle C · Rating 5 out of 5]

After he loses his job as a literary professor, Katzuo Nakamatsu becomes a listless flaneur. He wanders the streets of Lima, meandering aimlessly, meeting with old colleagues, identifying flowers in the park and experiencing intermittent mania. He visits the grave of his dead wife; he borrows a friend's gun; he visits brothels and smells the young men's feet in their espadrilles. Suddenly without a job and any sense of purpose, he is disintegrating into gerontic lassitude—"a big old capitulating body, which would not stop oozing odors". As he wanders the city, he reflects on his ethnic status as a "Nisei", a second-generation Japanese Peruvian. He feels like an outsider, in South America, in the gardens and barrios of Lima alike, even among the coteries of professors. He remembers the days during the Second World War, the forced detention of Japanese residents and expropriation of their businesses, and he sees the pervasive legacies of that racist history. He imagines the skeptical eyes of his fellow Peruvians warily regarding him with suspicion; he feels he has no true friends and he avoids his more successful family members. He remembers his father's friend, Etsuko Untén, a former brothel-owner who had resisted the Peruvian government and then, even after the end of the war, waited for the Japanese ships to come and take them back, trapped in a permanent state of patriotic conviction (it reminds of Werner Herzog's recent novel, The Twilight World about a soldier who continues to believe he is fighting in the war, unaware that it has ceased). Despite Katzuo's sense of machismo and derisive comments about "the perverse homosexuals", he winds up naked before a young man exclaiming "beauty does exist".

Delirious, hallucinatory, deranged, an homage to Martin Adán's own flanerie novel The Cardboard House, this is a beautiful novel about an old man on the margins. It's a poetic tableau of the intersecting evils of ageism, racism and heartless economics. His enlightenment is a sad revelation of ephemeral beauty.

[J Earl · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Enlightenment of Katzuo Nakamatsu, written by Augusto Higa Oshiro and translated by Jennifer Shyue, is a short but deep look at loneliness, alienation, and the individual struggle to understand our place in the world we live in.

The writing is at once beautiful and complex, Shyue's translation seems to capture the subtlety of the original very well. The long sentences, the work a reader is asked to do to understand it, is part of what makes this a compelling work. Told in short sentences or a bunch of short paragraphs would certainly appeal to a lazy reader, but the story would lose a lot of its power. We need to be there in the protagonist's mental and emotional labyrinth with him, and the style accomplishes this for us.

While specific to a Japanese-Peruvian, much of what Katzuo ponders and confronts will be relatable for many readers. Whether because of ethnicity, age, or any other factor, most of us have had the experience of profound alienation from those around us at least once. When much of what alienates is part of society, the pervasiveness of it can seem overwhelming and lead to what appears, at first glance, to be unreasonable assessments and decisions. Watching those play out in this novel is where much of the power comes from.

I would recommend this to readers who enjoy experiencing a character's mental and emotional conflict told in a reflective manner. It is a short novel, so even if a book full of complex sentences isn't always your cup of tea, and some such works can become tiresome, this doesn't require several hundred pages of effort. And the reward is well worth it.

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

[Alan M · Rating 5 out of 5]

'For the umpteenth time he checked and confirmed the abyss of feeling alive, stricken, devastated. This is insanity, he noted with terror, and he could not fling himself down onto the avenue, could not screech, or bang against the wall, weeping over his misery.'

This is a remarkable short nove,l intriguing on so many levels, not the least being the perspective of a 2nd generation Japanese-Peruvian living in Lima, his parents having left Japan to move to Peru in around 1918. Our central character is the eponymous Katzuo Nakamatsu, a 58 year-old professor who, it's pretty fair to say, has hit an existential crisis. Reluctant to go into work, when he finally does it is to find that he is being forced to retire. Taking to the streets as a flaneur, Katzuo ponders his life, his family history, his late wife Keiko. He changes his attire to look and walk more like his favourite poet Martín Adán and his father's friend Etsuko Untén.

As the book develops we witness Katzuo's mental and physical deterioration in a flurry of dreams and visions, noted and recorded by our narrator who belatedly introduces himself into the book as a colleague and friend. There is a resolution, an end to the book, but it is the journey that is the heart of this story.

Not everyone will like the existential, philosophical and often ephemeral nature of the text. But this is exactly the kind of book that, even though it is quite short, just fills me with joy at the wonders that an author can achieve in prose. And it introduced me to the poetry of Martín Adán, which is an added bonus.

A very strong 4.5 stars, which I'm happy to round up.

[Mandy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A short but powerful portrait of a man having a psychological and emotional breakdown, his mind disintegrating as he becomes more and more disorientated. Katzuo Nakamatsu is a Nisei, a second generation Japanese immigrant to Peru. Unexpectedly he is forced into retirement from his post as a University professor. Completely thrown off track by this, he starts to wander the streets of Lima in a sort of fever dream, adrift in a meaningless world. It was a book that I appreciated rather than actually enjoyed, largely because I couldn’t warm to the protagonist even though his plight is a tragic one. There’s a vaguely hallucinatory feel to the book as we move into Nakamatsu’s mind and it wasn’t a comfortable place to be. I was unaware of the Japanese diaspora in Peru and I can see why Nakamatsu loses his identity when his work is snatched from him, just as he has already lost his national identity to some extent and so becomes alienated from the society he lives in, not least because of the historical racism the Japanese have faced there. Quite a few threads to explore here, but I failed to relate to Nakamatsu, and thus found the book clever but cold.

[Kris · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novella is a bit of a dark horse. It’s beautifully written, but as the main character unravels, so does the writing. Kind of. I am not quite sure how to feel.

The first third, maybe almost half of the books, is very introspective. We move through a rather uninteresting life with Katzuo Nakamatsu in the most interesting way (my opinion). It was beautifully written and I let myself just go along with the words. But then, as Katzuo’s everyday life is falling apart, I just felt unsettled, uneasy and like I was not quite sure where I was with the story. Quite clever really, but I do have to admit my interest waned a bit in the last third as the narrative turned more to an outside perspective.

In the end, the read was not entirely satisfying, but I think it was very interesting. I had no idea about the large Japanese population in Peru and their cultural separateness.

I would definitely read more by this author as there were some incredible passages in this novella.

[Michael Kunz · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked up this book on a whim because it was short, and I thought it'd be a quick read. I was wrong. It's pretty dense, and it took me a while to get through. Not really a page turner, but it's not exactly trying to be one either. Even the translator says the translation process was fatiguing, like translating poetry but for chapters at a time instead of strophes. This book is about Japanese persecution in Peru, a subject I know nothing about. It focuses on the son of immigrants, somebody who ostensibly leads a comfortable life, but is haunted by the oppression of his ancestors. He spirals into madness / enlightenment. An interesting book, if a bit tedious. Some very good poetic prose surrounded by sentences you'll have to read two or three times to absorb. I might be more enthusiastic about this book if I knew more about the history behind it, and I hope I don't come off as flippant about a serious subject.

[Reece · Rating 5 out of 5]

Augusto’s Enlightenment superimposed a seeming madness upon me. While the novel’s subject endures his own schizophrenic cultural identity crisis, with the writing aesthetic almost constantly swirling within a pool of meandering juxtapositions that reminded me much of Beckett’s Trilogy, I felt myself going somewhat mad. I constantly desired to put it down due to the effects it had on myself reading it, experiencing some nightmares this past week which may or may not be connected to it. Hell, perhaps I’ve had a mental skid that lined up well with this work, but it is no less true to say that it certainly was no alcove for peace-of-mind, but instead a torturous work to become enamored in. It is unrelenting, brutal, and a prime example of the beauties which literature can elicit from the most repulsive imagery – the affirmations of the lived experience of an innumerable people. May there be future translations of Augusto’s works to further lose oneself in.

[Chris Chanona · Rating 3 out of 5]

Katzuo Nakamatsu is looking for self awareness, discovery, enlightenment. He has a complicated Japanese -Peruvian identity with which he is struggling. And he has questions. Why has no one loved him? Why has he never loved someone?

When he loses his job as an English professor this upsets his psychological balance and tips him over the edge. If you like reading about a character going through a breakdown and with a lot of introspection this will be for you.

It is quite dense writing in this translation and could have done with more paragraphs. There are other characters but many are imaginary or just mentioned in passing. He works out how to kill himself easily and ponders on this. Will he do it?

I read a copy provided by the publishers through NetGalley but my views are my own.

[Justine Kaufmann · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Enlightenment of Katzuo Nakamatsu by Augusto Higa Oshiro is the story of one man’s unravelling.

After a premonition of his own death and losing his job, this professor of Japanese descent begins his descent into madness: wandering the streets of Lima in eccentric clothing, reflecting on poetry, ruminating over the history of Japanese migrants in Peru to the point of hearing voices (‘I have ghosts in my head’). But Katzuo’s identity was already tenuous— Katzuo, marginal, impassive, and alone, adrift between two identities, not quite belonging to either.

I really liked this one. Only 96 pages, it’s a feverish work that reads like poetry. It’s Kurasawa’s Ikiru (1952) but set in South America with a dash or two of Dostoyevsky.

“In the eternity of the instant, in a manner of speaking, the green of the afternoon flickered out, the park’s babbling was erased, as if the world had taken flight, the pebbled paths disappeared, no serene gardens, or laughing families, or murmuring young couples, or ponds full of fish: the only thing in the air now was the sakura tree, its branches and luminous flowers. And in that fragment of afternoon, from that imperturbable beauty, Nakamatsu noticed, sprang a death drive, a vicious feeling, like the sakura were transmitting extinction, a shattering, destruction.”

(tr. From the Spanish by Jenifer Shyue)

[Valerie Barchefska · Rating 5 out of 5]

'There was no hint of angst, or even apprehension; there lay the stubborn Keiko, thirty-nine, victim of cancer, untouched, unconquered, frolicking without a care, beyond spite and family resentments, free of torture, of sicknesses of the body. Keiko was happy, immensely blessed, Katzuo was sure of it, he simply placed his flowers and, smiling, bowed his head, thinking, “When death comes, it will have your eyes.”'

It calls to mind the great Kafka--and why shouldn't it, for Kafka, too, was a member of a minority within society, a Jew in Prague while the Teutons and the Slavs were wrestling for it. Oshiro shows a lucid glimpse of life as a "Nisei" in Peru, while never losing focus on the spectre of death, and the universal fears of all mankind.

Read Around the World 10/195: PERU 🇵🇪

[Victoria · Rating 3 out of 5]

Katzuo Nakamatsu is the son of Japanese immigrants to Peru. Having recently been fired from his post as a university professor, he wanders the streets, devoid of purpose or drive, haunted by the mistreatment and animosity experienced by his people, as he devolves further and further into depression. Not only is Nakamatsu taunted by the rejections and aggressions he has personally experienced from the local Peruvians and whites, but he also must reconcile with ostracism from his community of Japanese immigrants. This novella explored the struggles that Japanese immigrants living in post-world-war-II Peru experienced regarding racial discrimination, cultural assimilation, and poverty.

[Jurga · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved an interesting topic of this little book. It follows a Japanese man in Peru, who is contemplating his life and identity.
As the book unfolds, thoughts, actions, routines and memories start to slowly fall in place like a puzzle. And by the end of it feels like it is story within a story, which connects at several points and essentially is still talking about this complex identity.
Beautifully written, short but definitely slow read. Might not be for everyone because of the pacing and flowy sentences it feels dark, atmospheric and yet, absorbing.