‹The End of the Special Time We Were Allowed› is the first collection of novels by Toshiki Okadas. The work, first published in 2007, was initially translated into English by Japanese playwright Aya Ogawa. The theatre director, who was born 1973, feels the pulse of a – his – generation in his novels, which reflect his performance background with regard to language and thought. A young generation of Japanese who grew up after the millennium never experienced the economic boom of the 1980s and were shaped by the ‹lost decade› of the 1990s, the decade that has never really ended. Work no longer provides orientation, support and a meaning of life to these ‹freeters›, a Japanese expression for people who lack full-time employment. And an alternative is not in sight. The only thing left for young people to do is to wait, if only for the cockroach to disappear while laying on a futon in a shabby flat.
Toshiki Okada / chelfitsch Theatre Company's play ‹SUPER PREMIUM SOFT DOUBLE VANILLA RICH› is also part of CULTURESCAPES Tokio 2014.
