Until I Meet My Husband is a collection of short autobiographical essays by Ryousuke Nanasaki, an activist who established LGBT Community Edogawa in 2015 and a wedding planning company called Juerias LGBT Wedding in 2016, both of which contributed to Tokyo’s Edogawa ward officially recognizing same-sex partnership by issuing marriage certificates.
Nanasaki lays out his motivations for becoming an activist toward the end of the book, but the majority of his essays are humorous stories about life and love. As Nanasaki explains in the final chapter, “In Place of an Afterword,” he wants readers to understand the “raw, uncut truth” of queer identity, which is that gay people experience happiness and make mistakes like everyone else.
As a result of Nanasaki’s honesty, the essays in Until I Meet My Husband are immensely entertaining and compulsively readable. Many of the stories will be familiar to queer Millennials, from receiving a stern lecture from a well-meaning teacher in elementary school to dating other closeted queer kids in high school to falling a little too hard for your first serious partner as an adult. Nanasaki leans hard into friendship drama, relationship drama, and family drama, but he’s so funny and good-natured that you can’t help but support him through his misadventures.
Molly Lee’s translation is pitch perfect, conveying the confidence and enthusiasm of Nanasaki’s voice in natural English that’s a pleasure to read. Along with the original essay collection, Seven Seas has also released the manga adaptation, which features dreamy artwork by BL manga author Yoshi Tsukizuki.
Contemporary Japanese Literature 