SEEING THE LIGHT: A Graphic Odyssey - with Cat - Through the History of Radiation

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SEEING THE LIGHT: A Graphic Odyssey - with Cat -
Through the History of Radiation
Author:          Erika Kobayashi
Translator:     Winifred Bird
Designer:       Brennan Kelly
Publisher:      arbaro books
Publication: August 6, 2025
Length: 188 pp.

*This book follows the Japanese format of reading from right to left. We recommend downloading the PDF and viewing it in two-page spread mode with Acrobat Reader.

In this poetic and intellectually rich graphic novel by award-winning novelist and visual artist Erika Kobayashi, a boy named Hikari (meaning “light”) and his mysterious cat Erwin traverse the complex, haunting legacy of radiation. Their journey, both literal and symbolic, revisits key historical moments: the discovery of radium by Marie Curie, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Radium Girls and the 2011 Fukushima disaster.

Blending documentary precision with speculative storytelling, Kobayashi creates a deeply emotional and meditative narrative that continues her inquiry into the nuclear age with luminous grace and intellectual daring. The English edition is a special release, featuring Winifred Bird’s translation and Brennan Kelly’s exquisitely crafted design.

From the dazzling wonders of the 1900 Paris World’s Fair to the radioactive silence following the 3.11 Fukushima disaster, Seeing the Light leads readers through a century shaped by radiant hope and devastating fallout.

Was radiation truly a gift of science — or a curse unleashed?

Through the wide-eyed perspective of a child and the paradoxical wisdom of a cat named after Schrödinger, readers are invited to explore how scientific discovery can shape, scar, and sometimes redeem the human experience.

This is not a simple chronology. It is an allegorical reflection on memory, intergenerational trauma, and the paradox of progress.

As Erwin the cat guides Hikari through time, the pair encounter not only historic events but their human
consequences. The emotional weight of these memories is balanced by Kobayashi’s gentle, minimalist artwork and her characteristically restrained narrative tone.
Seeing the Light continues her inquiry with luminous grace and intellectual daring.

Timelines, maps, and a curated reading list are included in the final pages, making the book both an artistic and educational achievement.


Erika Kobayashi is a Tokyo-based novelist, graphic-novel creator, and visual artist. Her novel Girls, Making Paper Balloon Bombs won the 78th Mainichi Publishing Culture Award, while Trinity, Trinity, Trinity has been translated into French, English, and Danish, and her story collection SUNRISE – Radiant Stories is available in English. She creates installations that echo and converse with her texts in museums and galleries worldwide, including the 13th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art.

Translation: Winifred Bird is an editor, translator and writer living in the northeastern United States. She is the author of Eating Wild Japan (Stone Bridge Press, 2021) and has written about the environment in Japan for magazines and newspapers. Her translations include Fox Tales by Tomihiko Morimi and Mirai and Wolf Children by Mamoru Hosoda. She is currently an editor at Tuttle Publishing.

Design: Brennan Kelly is a graphic designer, artist, and educator born on the ancestral lands of the Anishinaabeg in Robinson-Huron Treaty territory. He currently maintains a hybridized professional practice that moves between the spaces of art and design, while teaching in the Faculty of Design at OCAD University in Tkaronto/Toronto.

arbaro books is an independent e-book publisher named after the Esperanto word for “forest.”
It was established by Tokyo-based writer and artist Erika Kobayashi in 2025, marking 80 years
since the development and dropping of the atom bombs and the start of the nuclear age.
The project was born from a desire to bring Japanese novels, stories, comics, and art books
related to this cultural reality to readers of English and other languages.
Just as individual trees come together to form forests, we hope that with the help of many
people, our books will cross borders, become rooted, and create a new world.