After the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, critically acclaimed writer Hideo Furukawa experienced an unsettling "imagination meltdown."

"Novelists are artists, and usually imagination comes between them and reality," Fukushima-born Furukawa says. "But when reality becomes something far beyond our imagination, we are exposed, rendered naked and reality moves closer to art. We must then confront reality directly."

Horses, Horses, in the End the Light Remains Pure, by Hideo Furukawa, Translated by Doug Slaymaker and Akiko Takenaka.160 pagesColumbia University Press, Fiction.