Your story offers a vivid portrayal of Japan in the wake of the 2011 tsunami. Were you in the country at the time?

The story is totally fictionalised. I grew up in Brisbane and later moved to Japan and lived there for about seventeen years. Although the region struck by the tsunami was quite remote and I don’t know it specifically, I’m fairly familiar with regional Japan. Like so many people, I was transfixed by the video footage of the tsunami.