Run with the Wind

"After shoplifting some bread one chilly night, former high school track-and-field star Kakeru Kurahara runs through the city streets. Though he has grown disillusioned with the sport, he feels as if he could keep running forever. However, his reverie is broken by a mysterious boy on a bike: Haiji Kiyose, a fellow runner who also happens to attend Kakeru's univeristy. impressed by Kakeru's agility, Kiyose persuades Kakeru to move into Chikusei-so, a run-down dormitory where he lives with eight other boys, including identitical twins Jota and Joji, honor student Shindo, detail-oriented Yuki, trivia junkie King, Tanzanian international student Musa, nicotine-loving Nico, and manga otaku Prince. It's only when Kakeru is all settled in that Kiyose reveals his grand plan: to assemble a ten-man team of runners to compete in the Kahone Ekiden, a legendary college marathon relay race. Despite their reservations, over the course of ten months, this ragtag team will put aside their differences to pursue an elusive dream, and gain much more than they ever expected."--

Shion Miura made her fiction debut in 2000 with Kakuto suru mono ni maru (A Passing Grade for Those Who Fight). In 2006, she won the Naoki Prize for her story collection Mahoro ekimae Tada Benriken (The Handymen in Mahoro Town). Her other works in English include The Easy Life in Kamusari, Kamusari Tales Told at Night, and The Great Passage (Fune o amu), which received both the Booksellers’ Award in Japan and an Earphones Award and was made into an award-winning motion picture. Miura has also published more than fifteen collections of essays and is a manga aficionado. She lives in Tokyo.