The Japanese word gaijin means unwelcome foreigner.
It's not profanity, but is sometimes a slur directed at non-Japanese people in Japan.
My novel is called Gaijin .
Lucy is a budding journalist at Northwestern University and she's obsessed with an exotic new student, Owen Ota, who becomes her lover and her sensei .
When he disappears without explanation, she's devastated and sets out to find him.
On her three-month quest across Japan she fi.