Hiiragi, Sanaka

Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945)

Published on 24 July 2025 by PAN MACMILLAN (Picador) in the United Kingdom.

Paperback | 208 pages
129 x 197 x 16 | 156g

Sanaka Hiiragi’s The Lantern of Lost Memories is a healing, uplifting Japanese novel about family, love, loss and humanity, and what life is really about.

One photograph, one treasured memory, one chance to go back . . .

Imagine waking up in a cosy photo studio in the mountains, between this world and the next. A kind man hands you a hot drink and a stack of photographs, one from every day of your life. There are hundreds, even thousands of them. They capture your best days and your worst, memories you treasure and those you try to forget. And then there are the rest, those in-between days that we didn’t know were leading to the great highs and lows. Then, you are asked to pick one photograph from each year to be p