Horin-ji

This guide to Horin-ji in Nara follows Koda Aya, daughter of novelist Koda Rohan, who had already lost her mother and both siblings by the time a stranger's burned pagoda crossed her path in 1944, when lightning destroyed the three-story tower that once stood on this spot. It traces her chance meeting with the temple's head priest, Inoue Keikatsu, in a Tokyo publishing house, and how a single roof-tile donation grew after his death from lung cancer left the rebuilding in doubt. She moved to Ikaruga and stayed there, watching master carpenter Tsunekazu Nishioka's crew raise the timbers by hand, using the same joinery as neighboring Horyu-ji.