Apocalyptic Wandering in the Wilderness: Reading Hikaru Okuizumi, *A Record of Romantic Marching*

This paper explores the “mapping” out of sacred stor(ies), especially themes around wandering in the wilderness by examining the Japanese novel, A Record of Romantic Marching (2002) by Hikaru Okuizumi. This novel follows the journey of Japanese soldiers who are sent to an (imagined) island in Southeast Asia that was occupied and devastated by Japan during WWII. The story tours the “hell”: wounded and sick soldiers continue an “apocalyptic march” in the jungle in a fashion that mimics the Israelites wandering in the desert in the book of Exodus. Eventually, the novel reveals that the soldiers are ghosts who, eternally bound by the megalomania of colonialism, are doomed to perpetually wander the wilderness and never arrive to the promised (home)land. Describing a wandering without liberation, this “cartographic” novel criticizes Japanese imperialism and its legacy and urges the reader to ponder how to stop this—and other—“marches” through hell.