One thing that struck me in the three weeks I visited Japan (Nov 2019) was that I literally did not see a single homeless person. I asked someone about this, who explained to me that they were hidden away from city and town centers, and were kept far from public consciousness.

I don't know how true that was/is, but that explanation stuck with me. I therefore deeply appreciated that Tokyo Ueno Station captured some experience of a homeless older Japanese man. We wound our way through his life story, both painfully mundane and painfully tragic, and saw how he operated in the world, in Ueno park, and relative to the people around him. This is a tragic "no plot just vibes" book that's slow and somber and left me feeling melancholic.

Recommended if you enjoy slow desolate works of translated fiction (in tone, this reminded me of Kitchen and of Winter in Sokcho) and are looking for something to make you pause and feel sad.