Trinity, Trinity, Trinity: a Novel

A literary thriller about the effects of nuclear power on the mind, body, and recorded history of three generations of Japanese women.

Nine years after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster, Japan is preparing for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. An unnamed narrator wakes up in a cold, sterile room, unable to recall her past. Across the country, the elderly begin to hear voices emanating from black stones, compelling them to behave in strange and unpredictable ways. The voices are a symptom of a disease called “Trinity.”

As details about the disease come to light, we encounter a thread of linked histories—Prometheus stealing fire from the gods, the discovery of radiation, the nuclear arms race, the subsequent birth of nuclear energy, and the disaster in Fukushima. The thread linking these events begins to unravel in the lead-up to a terrorist attack at the Japan National Olympic Stadium. 
 
A work of speculative fiction reckoning with the consequences of the past and continued effects of nuclear power, Trinity, Trinity, Trinity follows the lives of three generations of women as they grapple with the legacy of mankind’s quest for light and power.

Erika Kobayashi is a visual artist based in Tokyo and the author of Trinity, Trinity, Trinity. Her novel Breakfast with Madame Curie, published in 2014 by Shueisha, was shortlisted for both the Mishima and the Akutagawa Prize. Sunrise: Radiant Stories is her second work of fiction to be published in English.

Brian Bergstrom is a Montréal-based lecturer and translator. His translations have appeared in publications including Granta, Aperture, LitHub, Mechademia, The Penguin Book of Japanese Short Stories, and Elemental: Earth Stories. His translation of Trinity, Trinity, Trinity by Erika Kobayashi (Astra House, 2022) won the 2022 Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission (JUSFC) Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature. His most recent translation is Slow Down: The Degrowth Manifesto (Astra House, 2024) by Marxist philosopher Kōhei Saitō.