Ayear of natural disasters in Japan — and elsewhere — has sparked some of the best writing on the nation seen in decades, as everyone from policy experts to ordinary citizens offered their views on the best route to recovery.
Among the best post-March 11 compilations providing kizuna (bonds of hope) was McKinsey & Company's excellent "Reimagining Japan: The Quest for a Future That Works," which urged wide-ranging economic and business reform, and Jeff Kingston's powerful "Tsunami: Japan's Post-Fukushima Future," which showed the folly of ignoring past lessons, concerning both natural and man-made disasters.
Another more personal compilation was the emotional "2:46 — Aftershocks: Stories from the Japan Earthquake," a collection of survivor tales evoking both sadness and solidarity. Known on Twitter as "Quakebook," the work was the brainchild of the anonymous "Our Man in Abiko," a British teacher living in Chiba Prefecture. Entirely crowd-sourced, it started with a single tweet. "This book was conceived one week after the quake," the introduction explains. "It was written, edited and completed in seven days to tell people's stories while their feelings were raw, memories fresh and futures so uncertain."
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