قصة الكتاب :
Shinchōsha (Shinchō Bunko), 2009. 672 pp. ¥840. ISBN 978-4-
10-116758-9.
Originally published by Shinchōsha, 2006.
Miura Shion
Born in 1976. Graduated from the School of Letters, Arts, and
Sciences at Waseda University. Won the 135th Naoki Prize in 2006
for Mahoro ekimae Tada Benri-ken [The Tada Handyman’s Shop in
Front of Mahoro Station]. In addition to numerous novels, including
Fune o amu [Knitting Ships], winner of the 2012 Hon’ya [Bookseller]
Prize, her works include Sanshirō wa sorekara mon o deta [And
Then Sanshirō Left Through the Gate], a collection of essays about
books.

Ten students live together in a rundown apartment in danger of collapsing at any
time. One day they decide to start running, hoping to enter the Hakone Ekiden,
a long-distance university relay race held every New Year between Tokyo and
Hakone. The problem is that only a few of them have any athletic experience at
all; the rest are a motley collection, including an otaku geek who spends his life
immersed in manga comics and a theoretically minded academic. This is hardly
the stuff from which a crack team of distance runners is made, but they do not let
this put them off.
The ekiden is an athletic event with a long tradition in Japan, and the Hakone
Ekiden is the one most closely followed. Dreaming of one day entering this hallowed
race, the students give it their all. The story is based on a wildly improbable
premise, and yet readers find themselves desperately urging these unlikely heroes
on—maybe because just under half of the book is devoted to the climax of the
Hakone Ekiden itself. Miura goes into fascinating detail of the ekiden that the 10
athletes must complete together, giving an exhaustive account of the runners’
tactics at each stage of the race and of all the work of the athletes and their supporters.
Just as the course of the ekiden goes up mountain passes and down into
valleys, the runners have their own ups and downs in life. As each runner slogs
along his section of the course, Miura gives flashbacks of his past and the people
around him. The way 10 such disparate people gradually come to think and feel
as one is depicted compellingly in this book. (MT)