Author Maki Kashimada is well-known in contemporary Japanese literature for her experimental style and philosophical themes. As a scholar of French literature and a member of the Japanese Orthodox Church, Kashimada tackles issues of faith, transgression, isolation and belonging within her works, often finding ways to incorporate a global perspective into her typically Japanese settings. “Love at Six Thousand Degrees,” her first full-length novel to be published in English, is thus a fitting introduction to her work.
Kashimada loosely modeled the novel on Marguerite Duras’ screenplay for “Hiroshima Mon Amour,” a 1959 classic of French New Wave cinema directed by Alain Resnais. In the film, a French actress and a Japanese architect meet in a Hiroshima hotel, their passionate physical affair complemented by their intellectual connection as they engage in spiraling philosophical conversations. In Kashimada’s short novel, a similar premise and structure is revealed: An unnamed woman starts a physical relationship with a young half Russian, half Japanese man she meets in a hotel elevator in Nagasaki, their sexual connection underpinned by their ongoing metaphysical discourse that gradually reveals their mutual suffering.