Published in 2025 (first published 2008)
256 pages
Hiro Arikawa is a renowned author from Tokyo. She is the international bestselling author of The Travelling Cat Chronicles and The Goodbye Cat. Her enduring classic title The Passengers on the Hankyu Line has sold over a million copies in Japan and beyond.
Allison Markin Powell is a well-regarded American translator and has worked most notably on Strange Weather in Tokyo, The Nakano Thrift Shop, and Lady Joker.
What is this book about?
Welcome aboard the Hankyu Line train!
Come along on a heartwarming, funny, and perfectly cozy voyage with the charming and relatable passengers—including one dashing dachshund—whose lives intersect and affect each other on one of Japan’s most romantic railway lines from international bestselling author Hiro Arikawa.
Between the two beautiful towns of Takarazuka and Nishinomiya, in a stunning mountainous area of Japan, rattles the Hankyu Line train. Passengers step on and off, lost in thought, contemplating the tiny knots of their existence. On the outward journey, we are introduced to the emotional dilemmas of five characters, and on the return journey six months later, we watch them find resolutions.
A young man meets the young woman who always happens to borrow a library book just before he can check it out himself, a woman in a white bridal dress boards looking inexplicably sad, a university student heads home after class, a girl prepares to leave her abusive boyfriend, and an old lady discusses adopting a dog with her granddaughter.
With stories that crisscross like the railway lines, the Hankyu train trundles on, propelling the lives and loves of its passengers ever forward.
