Yoshio Kita’s hopelessness and lack of faith in his future as an ordinary and lonely company worker crystallizes into a decision to take his own life, in what he calls ‘execution by Death by Choice’. His only remaining problem is how to spend both his remaining self-allocated seven days on earth and all his worldly money, in this darkly comic exploration of the cult of suicide in Japan, a country with one of the world’s highest rates of suicide. From fine dining with a former porn actress to insuring his life, from pursuing his ex-girlfriend to an entanglement with an assassin, Yoshio’s last seven days on earth take on unexpected twists and turns as Shimada asks his readers what it means to have the freedom to end your own life, and what becomes truly important when your days are numbered – even if it is by free choice.

Sensitively translated by Meredith McKinney, this tale of a very modern Japan is now for the first time available to English readers.   Sensitively translated by Meredith McKinney, this tale of a very modern Japan is now for the first time available to English readers.  

Masahiko Shimada is one of Japan’s best-known and most prolific fiction writers, and the winner of awards including the Noma Literary Prize for New Writers.

Meredith McKinney is currently a visiting fellow at the Australian National University, and works as a freelance translator.