Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

Preview
  • Ghosts of the Tsunami

  • Death and Life in Japan's Disaster Zone
  • By: Richard Lloyd Parry
  • Narrated by: Simon Vance
  • Length: 7 hrs and 47 mins
  • 4.6 out of 5 stars (206 ratings)

£0.00 for first 30 days

Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Ghosts of the Tsunami

By: Richard Lloyd Parry
Narrated by: Simon Vance
Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Summary

Winner of the Rathbones Folio Prize 2018

On 11 March 2011, a massive earthquake sent a 120-foot-high tsunami smashing into the coast of Northeast Japan. By the time the sea retreated, more than 18,000 people had been crushed, burned to death, or drowned.

It was Japan's greatest single loss of life since the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. It set off a national crisis and the meltdown of a nuclear power plant. And even after the immediate emergency had abated, the trauma of the disaster continued to express itself in bizarre and mysterious ways.

Richard Lloyd Parry, an award-winning foreign correspondent, lived through the earthquake in Tokyo and spent six years reporting from the disaster zone. There he encountered stories of ghosts and hauntings. He met a priest who performed exorcisms on people possessed by the spirits of the dead. And he found himself drawn back again and again to a village which had suffered the greatest loss of all, a community tormented by unbearable mysteries of its own.

What really happened to the local children as they waited in the school playground in the moments before the tsunami? Why did their teachers not evacuate them to safety? And why was the unbearable truth being so stubbornly covered up?

Ghosts of the Tsunami is a classic of literary nonfiction, a heartbreaking and intimate account of an epic tragedy told through the personal accounts of those who lived through it. It tells the story of how a nation faced a catastrophe and the bleak struggle to find consolation in the ruins.

©2017 Richard Lloyd Parry (P)2017 Audible, Ltd
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Listeners also enjoyed...

The Cold Vanish cover art
The Indifferent Stars Above cover art
The Road Taken cover art
Unspeakable cover art
London in the Nineteenth Century cover art
Children of the Night cover art
No Such Thing as Society cover art
Wild Swans cover art
The Girl They Left Behind cover art
The German Wife cover art
The Shepherd's Bush Murders cover art
Between Shades of Gray cover art
First They Killed My Father cover art
Broken Angels cover art
Salt to the Sea cover art
That's Not What Happened cover art

What listeners say about Ghosts of the Tsunami

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    145
  • 4 Stars
    43
  • 3 Stars
    16
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    1
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    146
  • 4 Stars
    26
  • 3 Stars
    13
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    2
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    135
  • 4 Stars
    32
  • 3 Stars
    18
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    1

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

great read, factual and informative

Really enjoyed listening to this book, well written and goes to the core of humanity when disaster strikes. full range of emotions with a deeply spirtual twist

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Hauntingly compelling

Just amazing, terrifying and tragic but the definition of a page turner, don't miss it

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

A tragic tale

This book was mostly about the school and it’s students who became victims of the tsunami in Japan, so wasn’t exactly what I expected from the titles description, however the stories of the people were very moving and the author has done them great justice in the retelling. Richard really captures the pain and suffering at the heart of such a tragic event, this book really pays homage to the victims and their families.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Bad pronunciation

The pronunciation of Japanese words and names is really bad and a distraction. They should have chosen someone with a knowledge of Japanese pronunciation especially as this is the story of someone who has lived in Japan for a number of years.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Sensitive and factual

Didn’t quite know what to expect - but was surprised at how sensitively the author had addressed this awful tragedy. The human side to the suffering and the grief - without being melodramatic and gushy. Well narrated too. Couldn’t stop listening - finished within 2 days. Felt very humbled by the Japanese people who suffered dreadful grief - yet still helped others … and the school children 😢. Was surprised at the outcome too. Recommended this read for its historical significance if nothing else .

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Very powerful story and storytelling

I was very impressed with this story, which navigates the writer's own story, with those of those affected. Parry asks the right questions of the things he witnesses, and has the courage not to provide us with easy answers.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Engaging, Intriguing, Impossible to Put Down

I lost count of the number of late appointments because of this book! I would sit in the car after just a little more to hear told.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Highly recommend!

So compelling, sad, heart wrenching, moving and beautifully told. Such an interesting glimpse of Japanese culture too. Such a tragedy. One that the whole world may yet pay for, as Fukushima continues to seem radioactive material into the ocean 😕

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

A must listen

Ghosts of the Tsunami is at once heartbreaking and at the same time exhilarating account of how we see life it the face of death. How we find the courage to go on, and how we lean on to the ghosts of the departed to make sense of our living, to heal and to see life beyond the dying.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Fabulous, haunting,

I vividly recall RLP reporting the devastation in the aftermath of the tsunami; the courage of the survivors and parents of lost children and their search for answers and justice is moving and humbling

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!