El emisario

In the vague future in which this story is set, Japan no longer exists behind closed doors: a catastrophe we know nothing about has caused an environmental collapse that has forced it to close its borders to the rest of the world. The entire country is contaminated, the vast majority of animal species have become extinct and food has become a scarce commodity. Cities have become depopulated due to the risk of pollution and many people have gone to live on the outskirts, in remote and isolated places. Life has been mutating (although the government has already replaced the term "mutation" with "adaptation to the environment"): men go through menopause, everyone changes gender at least once in their lives, technology it has lost its focus, the language has degenerated and words fall into disuse more and more quickly. The children that are born are made weak and sickly, and it is the grandparents, who are generally well over a hundred years old but still very vigorous, who have to take care of them. Thus, the novel follows a day in the life of young Mumei, a charming and hopeful adolescent who, amid the nonsense that surrounds him, still sees the world through the eyes of those who see it for the first time, and of his great-grandfather. Yoshiro, an old man who lives with the eternal uncertainty of what the future holds for his great-grandson.