You have either experienced unemployment or know someone who has. But what is it like to endure joblessness in a foreign country in the middle of an economic crisis? How would one survive cash-strapped circumstances for close to a year? In his beautiful and intelligently written travel memoir, Aponte tackles these questions as he tells his intimate, first-person, true story about triumphing over adversity, in the form of being poor and American, in Japan, during the countrys worst recession, since the second world war. Wayne Lionel Aponte's gift of observation, subtlety, and wry humor make THE YEAR OF NO MONEY IN TOKYO an extraordinary pleasure to read.