“The Perfect World of Miwako Sumida” by Clarissa Goenawan

University student Miwako Sumida has committed suicide and her small group of friends are caught completely off guard, yet determined to search for answers behind her death. Set mainly in Tokyo, Indonesian-born Clarissa Goenawan’s second novel, The Perfect World of Miwako Sumida, is a haunting story of friendship in young adulthood and how—even before social media—people are not often as they appear. Goenawan captures a time—1990—when Japanese young adults have few cares apart from studying and forging friendships before separating into closely defined gender roles of salarymen and office ladies. Miwako and her friends are mostly second year students at Waseda University.