Tokyo's Mystery Deepens: Essays on Tokyo

By Michael Pronko

Tokyo’s Mystery Deepens: Essays on Tokyo

Tokyo! Mysterious? Baffling? Unknowable?
In these essays, the biggest city in the world comes clearer and closer!

Writing about Tokyo for over 15 years, Michael Pronko unlocks the many, miniscule doors leading to Tokyo life. These 48 short essays reveal what’s hidden behind the gleaming exteriors and unconcerned faces in the busiest, most peopled city in the world.

Pronko’s concise essays ponder the minutest of cultural details---window flowerbeds, eye glances, face masks, and the many small gestures needed to navigate past thousands of people a day—to uncover the rich undercurrents of Tokyo life.

As in his first collection of essays, Beauty and Chaos, Pronko examines Tokyo as a city, as a culture and as intense experience. Tokyo’s Mystery Deepens explores the enigmatic sides of Tokyo with humor, delicacy and fascination.

Gold Award for Creative Non-Fiction (eLit Awards 2015)
Silver Award for Travel Essay (eLit Award 2015)