Immediately following the ruling by the Osaka District Court on the Okinawa Mass Suicides Suit (March 28, 2008), I was being interviewed by a correspondent from a foreign newspaper, while the plaintiffs were already engaged in the appeals process. Almost by way of greeting, I was asked by the correspondent, “What has this trial meant to your life?” I replied by saying, “If I have spent half my life writing essays and novels, then I have spent the other half of it reading books, or more precisely, focusing my reading on certain topics continuously for three year periods. During the two and a half years of this suit, my job has been to read the preparatory documents submitted by both the plaintiffs and defendants as well as the books named in those documents. This part of my life, trying as it was, was spent reading the works of distinguished writers whom I never would have had the chance to know otherwise.”