"Shinzo ni Ke ga Haeteiru Wake" is the intriguing title of a book published in April by Kadokawa. The book was written by my good friend, Mari Yonehara, and its title in English would be "That's Why Hair Grows on the Heart."

In this collection of about 70 short essays, Yonehara covers a wide variety of topics, most of them gleaned from her experiences as a child growing up overseas and then, later, from having worked as a simultaneous interpreter between Japanese and Russian.

The essay that lends the book its quirky title touches on the subtle differences in expression in different languages and how difficult it is for an interpreter, pressed for time, to do them justice. "That's why it is said," she wrote, "that a simultaneous interpreter's heart is covered in bristles."