10/03, Arts Culture Tourism from Tokyo

Kanji "Antonio" Inoki passed away last Saturday after being diagnosed with a heart decease several year ago. He came to be known for the unusual mixed martial arts contest with Muhammed Ali at the Nippon Budokan Hall in 1978, and later turned to politics, leveraging his influence in places such as Iraq and North Korea to negotiate the release of Japanese hostages and abductees. Yu Miri's own story is as a Zainichi writer of Korean and Japanese descent. Her latest book Tokyo Ueno Station won the fifth Berkeley Japan Prize last week at an award ceremony in California, and it tells the story of a worker from Fukushima looking for work in the run up to the 1964 Tokyo Olympics and their later life as the 2020 Olympics Games are announced. Miri's champions the forgotten and disregarded in society, a tale that now resonates around the world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices