the GHOSTS OF OKUMA
Available November 3, 2026
Named a Kirkus Best Indie Book for March
Read the starred review
“By turns comic and tragic, Mitch Wieland’s The Ghosts of Okuma is a sharply-written and brilliantly-paced novel . . . Funny, charming, infused with tenderness—a pure pleasure to read.”
Anthony Doerr, winner of the Pulitzer Prize
“Mitch Wieland’s vivid, unsparing prose conjures a Tokyo of snow and light, loss and belonging. Reminiscent of Kobo Abe’s The Ruined Map and Ruth Ozeki’s A Tale For The Time Being, this haunting story lingers like frostbite—quietly transformative, achingly real, and unforgettable.”
Jake Adelstein, author of Tokyo Vice
“This novel is a wild ride, and it leaves you breathless."
Charles Baxter
“Powerful, and at times playful, The Ghosts of Okuma suggests that our vulnerabilities are a beginning, rather than an end, once we remove our masks.
Ann Beattie
“Wieland’s haunted teen-aged lovers are both wildly funny and pierced by yearnings everyone in our crumbling world will recognize.”
Andrea Barrett
“To turn away from this story of hope and grief and adventure, by one of our most talented writers, you would have to have a heart of stone.”
Jacquelyn Mitchard
More praise for The Ghosts of Okuma >>
in the ghosts of Okuma, a grieving American teenager searching for his runaway sister in Tokyo teams up with a rebellious Fukushima refugee, leading them both on a dangerous journey into the radioactive exclusion zone where they must confront family secrets and find the courage to rebuild their shattered lives.
Excerpt:
“Soon, across Okuma,” she whispers, “the cherry blossoms will bloom for no one but us. Our time together will be like those blossoms. Tragic and brief, but incredibly beautiful.”
“Wieland strikes an impressive balance between the tender and the electrifying with clever juxtapositions, contrasting Renee’s fame with the anonymity of Tokyo’s teeming masses and Wyatt’s somber demeanor with that of the wonderfully wacky Yoshimi . . .
Filled with rich detail and lovable characters, the novel feels focused even as it takes a surprising turn into the world of activism, forging a link between Japan’s nuclear past and the characters’ more personal longings for answers.
Whether depicting the memories of a mother and son in California or staging an eerie conclusion set against a “rain-drenched radioactive forest,” Wieland finds something fascinating and engrossing in every twist of the tale.”
Kirkus (Starred Review)
From the back Cover:
“The Ghosts of Okuma is a luminous story of courage, connection, and the lengths we will go to reclaim what was been lost.”
