Trinity, Trinity, Trinity, Erika Kobayashi
Trinity, Trinity, Trinity, Erika Kobayashi
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Trinity, Trinity, Trinity
A Novel

Author: Erika Kobayashi, Brian Bergstrom

Narrator: Emily Woo Zeller

Unabridged: 5 hr 34 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/28/2022

Synopsis

A literary thriller about the effects of nuclear power on the mind, body, and recorded history of three generations of Japanese womenNine years after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster, Japan is preparing for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. An unnamed narrator wakes up in a cold, sterile room, unable to recall her past. Across the country, the elderly begin to hear voices emanating from black stones, compelling them to behave in strange and unpredictable ways. The voices are a symptom of a disease called “Trinity.”As details about the disease come to light, we encounter a thread of linked histories—Prometheus stealing fire from the gods, the discovery of radiation, the nuclear arms race, the subsequent birth of nuclear energy, and the disaster in Fukushima. The threads linking these events begins to unravel in the lead-up to a terrorist attack at the Japan National Olympic Stadium. A work of speculative fiction reckoning with the consequences of the past and continued effects of nuclear power, Trinity, Trinity, Trinity follows the lives of three generations of women as they grapple with the legacy of mankind’s quest for light and power.

About Erika Kobayashi

Erika Kobayashi was born in 1978 in Tokyo, Japan. She creates works that are inspired by things invisible to the eye: time and history, family and memory, and the traces left in places. She was awarded the seventh Tekken Heterotopia Literary Prize in 2020 for her novel Trinity, Trinity, Trinity, and nominated for the twenty-seventh Mishima Yukio Award and the 151st Akutagawa Award for her novel Breakfast with Madame Curie. She currently lives and works in Tokyo.

About Emily Woo Zeller

Emily Woo Zeller is an Audie and Earphones Award–winning narrator, voice-over artist, actor, dancer, and choreographer. AudioFile magazine named her one of the Best Voices of 2013. Her voice-over career includes work in animated film and television in Southeast Asia.

About Brian Bergstrom

Brian Bergstrom is a lecturer and translator who has lived in Chicago, Kyoto, and Yokohama. His writing and translations have appeared in publications including Granta, Aperture, Lit Hub, Mechademia, Japan Forum, positions: asia critique, and The Penguin Book of Japanese Short Stories.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Queralt✨

Trinity, Trinity, Trinity is a book about the intergenerational effects of radiation on people. When you think about the words nuclear or radiation, you may think of Chernobyl and North Korea, but Japan has been one of the countries hit with more radiation issues: nuclear weapons, the focus on nucle......more

Goodreads review by Ecem

Many thanks to NetGalley and Astra Publishing House for an advance copy of the book in exchange for an honest review. Trinity, Trinity, Trinity is an interesting novel that traces the history of radiation starting from its discovery to the development of nuclear weapons and nuclear energy, as well as......more

Goodreads review by Madeline

This is a really quick, but really unique read. The story brings together the history and legacy of nuclear power with three generations of women in a small family during the beginning of the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics. Old people in Japan have begun to pick up black radioactive rocks and listening......more

Goodreads review by Jago

4.5 stars. Trinity, Trinity, Trinity by writer and artist Erika Kobayashi might be the most interesting Japanese novel I've read in the last couple of years. A short book full of fascinating moments, metaphors, ideas, the history of radiation, Fukushima and the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. If you're inte......more

Quotes

“This compelling novel…examines the shifting sands of memory and interconnected identity in a fluid landscape shaped by nuclear radiation, social media, and social connection. Highly recommended." Library Journal (starred review)

“Emily Woo Zeller superbly narrates this imaginative reflection on Japanese citizens and their relationship with radiation. Zeller’s performance is transcendent…She draws precise portraits of the mostly unnamed characters and makes even the fragmented plot memorable listening.” AudioFile

“A luminous and penetrating history of our shared present.” Mark Seltzer, author of The Official World

“Kobayashi gathers world-historical, feminist, and ecological yarns to crochet a web of ‘terrorist’ intrigue…Fast-paced, funny, and thrillingly conceptual.” Margherita Long, author of Care, Kin, Crackup

"Explores the nuclear trauma of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries…A gripping narrative that this reader could not put down.” Janice Carole Brown, author of Tarnished Words

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