Author Luke Darracott: From Japan with Amor
In this article, author Luke Darracott shares how life between Japan, the UK, and Spain has shaped his outlook, his passions, and his sense of home. From running a wine shop in Madrid to falling in love with Japanese culture, his journey is one of connection and curiosity. His new book, Hikikomori: Journey from Darkness, published by Ybernia, brings these experiences together in a thoughtful and engaging read.
By Luke Darracott
Imagine a Venn diagram. Three spheres: Japan, UK, Spain. Japan crosses UK and the common word could be ‘MANNERS’. Then Spain would cross Japan provoking the resulting oval to contain the word ‘FOOD’. Finally, Spain might cross with UK, offering up ‘EXPAT’. Lately, at the centre of these three imaginary circles, I find myself.
Ego and set theory aside, the last few years of my life have been intensely shaped by these three countries. One, my birthright, another my home, and the third an obsession. By all accounts three very, if not quite starkly, different countries.
The story starts as have many others: student of languages moves to Madrid and spends a year teaching English, ostensibly to gain language experience, drink lots of wine, eat a lot of tapas, and return to the UK. But, as is often the case, the Iberian capital soaks through the dermis and invades you. And you stay.
Spain has been good to me
Spain has – autónomo headaches, creatively stupid bureaucracy and cruel summers apart – been good to me. It is a generous land of generous people. The wine is thick and juicy, the food usually good to great, the weather sultry or bracing and mostly comfortable, the landscapes eye-watering and dramatic, and the architecture and heritage vast.
After the initial few years I bit by bit became a qualified alcoholic and ultimately opened the Madrid & Darracott wine shop, purveyors of fine vinos, nibbly bits and events and tastings. Behind the bottles, I was however always writing and also falling in love with another far out east: Nippon herself.
Fallin in love with Japan
Samurai, forest-shrouded temples, sliced sashimi kissed with soy sauce, kabuki masks, shuffling geishas, the popping neon of Shinjuku, the takoyaki stalls unfurling their smoke on Osaka’s Dotonbori, the hopeful sadness at Hiroshima, the deer that bow in Nara, the drunken salarymen red-faced and tumbling out of izakaya, the anime-dressed youth sidestepping them as they giggle behind their hands, and the fat red sun on the white flag. It was so different from the Costa del Sol or Henley-on-Thames.
These days I’m lucky. After a two-decade interest in Japan, mostly watching movies and reading as much literature as possible, my love of it has become a more tangible part of my life. I went to Japan with a friend; one made thanks to my life in Madrid. I started learning Japanese with a teacher who had also made Madrid his home. Spain too has been bitten by the Japan bug – restaurants abound of all styles now, taking advantage of the country’s top-quality fish.
And sake. Sweet, gentle, floral sake. I became a kikisake-shi ‘sake master’ and found a nation full of people whose interest in this most delicious but misunderstood drink is dramatically on the rise. And a community behind it; indeed, in May the IberKanpai will be the country’s first major sake event taking place here in the capital. Finally, I wrote a book – Hikikomori: Journey from Darkness – published by an Irish-Spanish independent editorial called Ybernia.
The Venn diagram has become my reality. And it’s all thanks to Spain. If I had lived on the Thames still, the Asian side might have been relegated to the ‘ex-interest’ pile.
But it didn’t.
Discover Hikikomori: Journey from Darkness by Luke Darracott, available now from Ybernia. Visit Ybernia’s website to explore more titles:
Hikikomori: Journey from Darkness by Luke Darracott
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