A long novel in which the small northeastern village of Kirikiri declares independence from Japan and rises as a state with its own language, currency, politics, medicine, and agriculture. Through humor and the force of dialect, it sharply reexamines centralized power, economics, rural life, language, and the nature of the nation.

Beginning with the demand for a passport, this is a comic tale of building another nation.

A long novel centered on Masaoka Chuzaburo, the adopted son of Ritsu, Masaoka Shiki's sister, and on the poets, thinkers, and ordinary people connected to Shiki's circle. Rather than grand historical events, Ryotaro Shiba listens to intimate memories and relationships, quietly tracing the pathos of lives being born and passing away.

From the footsteps of people linked to Shiki emerges a clear, elegiac portrait of ordinary lives.