I felt lonely when I was talking to my friends because they couldn't…

“It became a habit which I still have. ... I'd think up stories because I had so much time alone.”

Kojima said loneliness had accompanied him since childhood and reached its worst during his adolescence, even when he was surrounded by family, friends, school and activities. He described how a switch could flip in the middle of having fun, making the feeling stronger the more numerous the crowd was; at the end of the year, when the city was liveliest, he spent sleepless nights fearing that the loneliness might one day kill him.

“But when I was alone, I would hold my knees and listen to music and cry.”

“As soon as I got home, I turned on every light in every room and switched on the TV at high volume—not to watch anything, but to distract from the loneliness.”

Kojima recalls that, as a child, he was the first to come home alone: turning on the lights was his duty and opening a book in solitude became his routine. He says books kept the feelings of isolation and loneliness from crushing him, and that after his father’s early death he found within books adults and teachers who served as guides and role models.