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The Wind is Howling: The Autobiography of a Japanese Novelist
Book by Ayako Miura
190 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1976
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
August 2, 2025
Ayako Miura is a Japanese novelist and this is her autobiography where she tells how she became a Christian and a bit of the beginning of her Christian life.
I enjoy conversion memoirs, and that's all I really knew about the book going in. I didn't realize Miura had tuberculosis, and that made the book much more impactful for me, as I'm also dealing with illness.
She talks about how she wanted to die for a long time and essentially "checked out" of life, and shares how the people in her life taught her about Christ and loved her as He did. It was a very encouraging read that I recommend!
A few quotes I liked:
"When I talked to friends about God, I was often told, 'There can't be a God. In today's scientific, progressive world, if something cannot be proved it is the same as not existing.'
Then suddenly I wanted to laugh. Has this world made so much scientific progress? Are men as clever as that! They think they understand every single thing when they do not even understand their own bodies. Science is no more than man's inventions.... 'All right. Since we cannot prove God's existence, if you say there is no God, I want you to prove that.'
Then most of my friends would pause and scratch their heads. If there was no scientific proof that God did not exist, then it was unscientific to say that He did not." (p 81-82)
"For the believer, thinking and praying may appear to be the same thing, but actually they are quite different. It is no easy thing to have the sincerity and love needed to pray, 'You can take my life.' " (p 155)
"At such times it is miserable to be ill. If you know the cause of the [symptoms] you can treat it and bear with some suffering, but to become weaker, with the doctor insisting that nothing is wrong, is far more distressing." (p 81)
I enjoy conversion memoirs, and that's all I really knew about the book going in. I didn't realize Miura had tuberculosis, and that made the book much more impactful for me, as I'm also dealing with illness.
She talks about how she wanted to die for a long time and essentially "checked out" of life, and shares how the people in her life taught her about Christ and loved her as He did. It was a very encouraging read that I recommend!
A few quotes I liked:
"When I talked to friends about God, I was often told, 'There can't be a God. In today's scientific, progressive world, if something cannot be proved it is the same as not existing.'
Then suddenly I wanted to laugh. Has this world made so much scientific progress? Are men as clever as that! They think they understand every single thing when they do not even understand their own bodies. Science is no more than man's inventions.... 'All right. Since we cannot prove God's existence, if you say there is no God, I want you to prove that.'
Then most of my friends would pause and scratch their heads. If there was no scientific proof that God did not exist, then it was unscientific to say that He did not." (p 81-82)
"For the believer, thinking and praying may appear to be the same thing, but actually they are quite different. It is no easy thing to have the sincerity and love needed to pray, 'You can take my life.' " (p 155)
"At such times it is miserable to be ill. If you know the cause of the [symptoms] you can treat it and bear with some suffering, but to become weaker, with the doctor insisting that nothing is wrong, is far more distressing." (p 81)
August 24, 2013
This book is Miura's disclosure to her Japanese readers of the Christian journey she made from a Japanese unbeliever to a Japanese Christian. In many of her books, she does not bring out an explicit Christian story, but she will put the characters in a situation where the conclusion aligns with Christian faith rather than Japanese values.
Miura reveals that she was a person who did not fit in, which in Japanese society is a great problem. Everyone tries to blend in and be as much alike outwardly and in manners. There is a Japanese proverb, "The nail that sticks up gets pounded down," and I have seen how Japanese people who are "different" are "pounded down" by other Japanese people. This was Miura's experience, too.
The most unforgetable story in this book is when she tells about attending a Christian church in Japan and finds that the people there "pound her down" too. Most people would turn away in discouragement and say that Christians are hypocrites. Miura knew that Christian teaches the salvation of sinners and when she saw that Christians were sinful, her reaction was, "If God accepts them, maybe He will accept me." I've always loved that story.
Miura reveals that she was a person who did not fit in, which in Japanese society is a great problem. Everyone tries to blend in and be as much alike outwardly and in manners. There is a Japanese proverb, "The nail that sticks up gets pounded down," and I have seen how Japanese people who are "different" are "pounded down" by other Japanese people. This was Miura's experience, too.
The most unforgetable story in this book is when she tells about attending a Christian church in Japan and finds that the people there "pound her down" too. Most people would turn away in discouragement and say that Christians are hypocrites. Miura knew that Christian teaches the salvation of sinners and when she saw that Christians were sinful, her reaction was, "If God accepts them, maybe He will accept me." I've always loved that story.
December 29, 2016
This autobiography helped me understand an animistic worldview as Ayako described the despair she felt before she met Jesus.
January 7, 2008
Recently, I rediscovered a favorite author of mine -- Ayako Miura. I stumbled across her name in a magazine editorial, and it evoked memories of a powerful novel I had read almost 15 years ago. (That book was called "A Heart of Winter.")
Reminded of Miura's work, and interested to see what else she had written, I came across other books by her through Amazon. I just recently finished reading this autobiographical work "The Wind is Howling" and am still reeling from it's impact. I learned that in addition to her work as a novelist, Miura also wrote of her experiences through composing haiku. Until reading this recent book, I never appreciated the intense and concise beauty in haiku. The following haiku will give just a small flavor of Miura's character and her personal journey.
From the author's early days of nihilistic
disillusionment (This was during the 10 year
period during which she was hospitalized with
tuberculosis shortly following World War II):
I awoke clutching a tepid hot water bottle
Can one call this moment living?
I shake the thermometer down;
I am alive but accomplishing nothing.
From her developing friendship with the man who
would eventually lead her to Christ, and become
her fiance:
When you found me smoking and turned sadly away,
I was attracted to you.
Listening to the rumour that I was a flirt
I smiled without admitting it.
Years later, following the death of her fiance:
When I watch a cloud drifting across the sky in May
It is hard to believe you have died.
You taught me about original sin,
And I remember your intense eyes.
The mountain dove sang on the hill in the evening
And we knelt and prayed to Jesus together.
You held me in your arms as if I were your wife.
Oh, come back, come back from Heaven.
Even though the originals of these haiku were written in Japanese, and these are only translations, they capture and express so much human emotion. I think for me, reading Miura's work helps to connect me with the Japanese people.
Since my language ability is still so limited, day-to-day conversations with Japanese co-workers and students consist of only as much pathos and emotional intensity as one can fit into a simple English or simple Japanese phrase. My days are full of exchanges like "I love cherry trees," and "What American food do you like?" "It is nice to see you again," and "I'm sorry you are sick."
It's easy to forget that the Japanese people I interact with every day have deep and profound emotions that I cannot begin to fathom with my limited language ability. My conversations are necessarily shallow, however, the people I am talking with are far from shallow. Emotionally rich writing that transcends my language barrier is a timely reminder to my forgetful soul.
--Jen
Reminded of Miura's work, and interested to see what else she had written, I came across other books by her through Amazon. I just recently finished reading this autobiographical work "The Wind is Howling" and am still reeling from it's impact. I learned that in addition to her work as a novelist, Miura also wrote of her experiences through composing haiku. Until reading this recent book, I never appreciated the intense and concise beauty in haiku. The following haiku will give just a small flavor of Miura's character and her personal journey.
From the author's early days of nihilistic
disillusionment (This was during the 10 year
period during which she was hospitalized with
tuberculosis shortly following World War II):
I awoke clutching a tepid hot water bottle
Can one call this moment living?
I shake the thermometer down;
I am alive but accomplishing nothing.
From her developing friendship with the man who
would eventually lead her to Christ, and become
her fiance:
When you found me smoking and turned sadly away,
I was attracted to you.
Listening to the rumour that I was a flirt
I smiled without admitting it.
Years later, following the death of her fiance:
When I watch a cloud drifting across the sky in May
It is hard to believe you have died.
You taught me about original sin,
And I remember your intense eyes.
The mountain dove sang on the hill in the evening
And we knelt and prayed to Jesus together.
You held me in your arms as if I were your wife.
Oh, come back, come back from Heaven.
Even though the originals of these haiku were written in Japanese, and these are only translations, they capture and express so much human emotion. I think for me, reading Miura's work helps to connect me with the Japanese people.
Since my language ability is still so limited, day-to-day conversations with Japanese co-workers and students consist of only as much pathos and emotional intensity as one can fit into a simple English or simple Japanese phrase. My days are full of exchanges like "I love cherry trees," and "What American food do you like?" "It is nice to see you again," and "I'm sorry you are sick."
It's easy to forget that the Japanese people I interact with every day have deep and profound emotions that I cannot begin to fathom with my limited language ability. My conversations are necessarily shallow, however, the people I am talking with are far from shallow. Emotionally rich writing that transcends my language barrier is a timely reminder to my forgetful soul.
--Jen
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 9, 2022
This is a very strong methodical autobiography which tells the wonderfully surprising story of Ayako Miura and her journey to Christianity in post-W.W.II Japan. The translator purposely did not Americanize the English and so the book has a somewhat broken-English feel to it which makes it more enduring. One of the interesting aspects of this book is that of all the Christian activities in the book, there is no sign, no hint even, of any western or American influence in any of these activities. We begin with Ayako Miura just after the war and how "the defeat" was such a devastating experience for many in Japan, in Ayako Miura's case, being a devoted teacher through all of the war years, she was a teacher of the Emperor as God doctrine and with the Americans coming in and re-writing of the school books to remove the Emperor as God material, she shows powerfully how this was very difficult for the Japanese psyche. Anyway, we follow Ayako Miura as she goes into a deep depression in which she fails at suicide and we soon learn of her tuberculosis and how all of her acquaintances are either sick, dying or in the midst of long stays in the hospital. We learn of a literary circle of people, either reading, writing or discussing poetry and novels by Tolstoy or Dostoyevski. It is in this world in which Ayako Miura falls as she becomes increasingly sick from her own tuberculosis from which we watch her begin a long slow deterioration until she is rendered incapacitated in a body cast where she stays for more than three years! Intermingled in all this is the series of men who she comes to know, from her fiancée, who she must turn down, to Tadashi Maekawa, to whom this book is a really a moving tribute, a Christian godly man who influences everyone he came in contact with, with a simple servant's heart. We watch as Ayako Miura slowly is changed and moved from the loneliness and isolation of Nihilism to the joys and love of Christianity, by this man's devotion to her. They eventually fall in love, though he eventually dies of his illness (as many do during the course of the book) and we watch Ayako Miura remain faithful to her Christianity through trials which are simply hard to fathom, eventually becoming involved in an distribution of Christian literature throughout Japan among either other invalids or other tuberculosis patients (and all this while she is flat on her back in body cast!), eventually (after 12 years!) Ayako Miura gets better and God brings a man into her life of whom she marries. This book was actually an answer to her fans (as she later became a famous novelists) that read her Pro-Christianity beliefs in her novels.
April 5, 2014
Very very good. There were some points where I forgot that it was an autobiography and read it like fiction.
April 8, 2021
Jam packed with beautiful little poems and brutal honesty.
In a Japan ruined by war, a young primary school teacher is struck down with TB and embarks on more than a decade of hospital stays, self-reflection, relationship-building, socialising, despair, joy, stoicism, creativity, grief, and the discovery of faith. The narrative is chronological, though not smoothed and paced nicely, nor structured as I would have expected a conversion story to be (so I guess it is so much more than that - in fact when she becomes a Christian, about two-thirds of the way through, it's all very sudden and almost matter-of-fact), and as much as anything else is a real eye-opener on how TB was treated in the middle of the 20th century, and a window onto a degree of chronic suffering and a community of chronic suffering and early death that I can't really imagine (seven years in a plaster cast, and that was just the coup de grace of a much longer succession of treatments and convalescences in various hospitals and sanitoria).
Throughout, the quiet devotion of her family who bore the burden of care, both financial and in terms of feeding and cleaning her through the ordeal, the delightful eccentricity and big personalities of several of her fellow patients, are really striking, alongside the author's own very unique way of going about life and conversation!
In a Japan ruined by war, a young primary school teacher is struck down with TB and embarks on more than a decade of hospital stays, self-reflection, relationship-building, socialising, despair, joy, stoicism, creativity, grief, and the discovery of faith. The narrative is chronological, though not smoothed and paced nicely, nor structured as I would have expected a conversion story to be (so I guess it is so much more than that - in fact when she becomes a Christian, about two-thirds of the way through, it's all very sudden and almost matter-of-fact), and as much as anything else is a real eye-opener on how TB was treated in the middle of the 20th century, and a window onto a degree of chronic suffering and a community of chronic suffering and early death that I can't really imagine (seven years in a plaster cast, and that was just the coup de grace of a much longer succession of treatments and convalescences in various hospitals and sanitoria).
Throughout, the quiet devotion of her family who bore the burden of care, both financial and in terms of feeding and cleaning her through the ordeal, the delightful eccentricity and big personalities of several of her fellow patients, are really striking, alongside the author's own very unique way of going about life and conversation!
July 31, 2019
A clean book. I might read it again someday.
Some ideas: Care about something in someone else's life sincerely, seek it, give up, and then God works in other people (an interpretation of Tadashi striking his shoe). You need to be dependent on God only -- yes, on people, in a sense, but there's a sense in which you shouldn't be independent, nor dependent on people, but on God. (Important lesson for those who have been sick a long time.)
Some ideas: Care about something in someone else's life sincerely, seek it, give up, and then God works in other people (an interpretation of Tadashi striking his shoe). You need to be dependent on God only -- yes, on people, in a sense, but there's a sense in which you shouldn't be independent, nor dependent on people, but on God. (Important lesson for those who have been sick a long time.)
December 28, 2023
Started on a high with interesting insight into a Japanese nihilist worldview.
But then by the end became a "and then I met the love of my life so god is good!".
That's a big simplification, and there was still worthwhile sections of seeing how God prepared so many things (including her suffering with tuberculosis for so long).
But the way it ended just made romance the focus I guess, which I don't think was the best angle.
But then by the end became a "and then I met the love of my life so god is good!".
That's a big simplification, and there was still worthwhile sections of seeing how God prepared so many things (including her suffering with tuberculosis for so long).
But the way it ended just made romance the focus I guess, which I don't think was the best angle.
May 21, 2017
This autobiography gives much understanding of Japanese thinking. I found it helpful to journey with Ayako through much suffering (she spent over 12 years in hospital and in a body cast with TB) and see how she viewed that first as a non-Christian (Nihilist she called herself) and then as a Christian. Becoming a Christian was a long, hard road for her.
March 2, 2022
A beautiful story of love for others and above all love for God. Love and loss captured delicately with words – poetry. Ayako's heartfelt story will leave you wanting more.
‘So ultimately we shouldn’t envy people in their “happiness”. You could say I’m perfectly happy just walking across the grass together with you.’ There was not a shadow on his face.
‘So ultimately we shouldn’t envy people in their “happiness”. You could say I’m perfectly happy just walking across the grass together with you.’ There was not a shadow on his face.
November 7, 2025
Interessant te lezen hoe een jonge vrouw dealt met tuberculose in de jaren 50, waarbij ze 7 jaar heeft doorgebracht in een gipsbed. Op die manier kan alleen in het Oosten, in dit geval Japan. Jammer dat een van de motieven haar bekering tot het christendom is. De aanhalingen uit de bijbel sloeg ik dan maar over. Heb het boek met plezier, en respect gelezen.
October 16, 2017
I loved it all-- except that Valerie Griffiths used a TEV Bible when she translated the Biblical passages.
September 29, 2022
I read along time ago but i remember it was different to anything else I had read before I remember it was raw and beautiful I have a battered copy somewhere I would like another copy
March 6, 2023
I really enjoyed the simplicity of Miura's writing, yet also appreciated how much emotion and depth she was able to convey about her experiences. Her story is heartfelt and takes you through all the highs and especially the lows of her life. I was really touched by all of the people she encountered throughout her life, and how she was able to slowly turn to faith from nihilism (the belief that everything is meaningless). I felt that her mention of Ecclesiastes was very fitting, and it was all I could think about when reading this book.
February 23, 2025
An interesting look into her mind along her journey to Christianity. A very valuable read.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews