Born in Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan in 1948, Tsutomu Igarashi won the Gunzo Magazine's Best New Writer Prize for his story "Ryutaku no Shima" (Isle of the banished) in 1979. While living in Thailand he founded Tonan Asia Tsuushin (The Southeast Asian News) in 1987. After returning to Japan he published the magazine Asian Wave in 1993, Asia Bungaku (Asian Literature) in 1996 and Bungei Shisho in 2005. In 1998 he won the top prize in the Yomiuri Newspaper/NTT Printec for his novel Midori no tegami (the green letter). To the Temple is set just inside the Thai border with Cambodia at the time when Pol Pot's forces were putting up a last resistance to the invading Vietnamese army. A middle-aged Japanese man volunteers for a relief organization working in the refugee camps to escape loan sharks who are pursuing him for his father’s debt. He learns about the Cambodian refugees' plight through his friendship with his assistant Muon, who has come through extraordinary hardship and danger to get to the camp. Read excerpt of To the Temple Contact author at: edisear@aol.com