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Someone to Watch Over You
An unsettling, poignant debut novella about unusual connections fostered by the covid pandemic, perfect for fans of sharp literary fiction that reflects and confronts our world It’s early 2020, and with the world in chaos as covid spreads, two lonely people, both seeking to break with their pasts, meet and start sharing a home. One is a former security guard who was captured on video knocking down a protester who died soon afterward; the other, a former teacher accused of driving a student to suicide. In an oppressive atmosphere of tension and fear, the pair avoid direct contact and communicate through notes and their shared presences, close yet distant. Their odd connection, with neither affection nor trust, brings them a kind of privacy and safety they both need – but at what cost? The book’s creeping tension draws out an unforgettable story of disconnection and disruptive change.
The Premonition
Longlisted for the PEN Translation Prize The internationally beloved author of Kitchen and Dead-End Memories returns with a beautiful and heartfelt story of a young woman haunted by her childhood and the inescapable bitterness that inevitably comes from knowing the truth Yayoi, a 19-year-old woman from a seemingly loving middle-class family, has lately been haunted by the feeling that she has forgotten something important from her childhood. Her premonition grows stronger day by day and, as if led by it, she decides to move in with her mysterious aunt, Yukino. No one understands her aunt’s unusual lifestyle. For as long as Yayoi can remember, Yukino has lived alone in an old gloomy single-...
Moshi Moshi
"A beautiful translation . . . Yoshimoto deploys a magically Japanese light touch to emotionally and existentially tough subject matter: domestic disarray, loneliness, identity issues, lovesickness . . . [a] nimble narrative." ―ELLE In Moshi Moshi, Yoshie’s much–loved musician father has died in a suicide pact with an unknown woman. It is only when Yoshie and her mother move to Shimokitazawa, a traditional Tokyo neighborhood of narrow streets, quirky shops, and friendly residents that they can finally start to put their painful past behind them. However, despite their attempts to move forward, Yoshie is haunted by nightmares in which her father is looking for the phone he left behind on the day he died, or on which she is trying—unsuccessfully—to call him. Is her dead father trying to communicate a message to her through these dreams? With the lightness of touch and surreal detachment that are the hallmarks of her writing, Banana Yoshimoto turns a potential tragedy into a poignant coming–of–age ghost story and a life–affirming homage to the healing powers of community, food, and family.
Mittens and Pity
Winner of the Tanizaki Prize in 2022, her latest short story collection from 2021, Mittens and Pity is what Yoshimoto calls the greatest achievement of her writing life since Dead-End Memories Set between Kanazawa, Helsinki, Taipei, Rome, Hong Kong, and Hachijo-jima, the six stories collected here depict people who are struggling with recent loss and coming to terms with the truth of living with the memory. In the title story, a couple takes a honeymoon to Helsinki after both mothers, who had been against their marriage, passed away. In “Sinsin and the Mouse,” a daughter who has dedicated her young adult life to caring for her sick mother, travels to Taipei after her mother’s death, sl...
Idol, Burning
WINNER OF THE AKUTAGAWA PRIZE 'Usami so successfully depicts the consequences of pure obsession' Guardian 'Essential reading for anyone who wants to understand what it is like to be a teenage girl' Catherine Prasifka High-school student Akari has only one passion in her life: her oshi, her idol. His name is Masaki Ueno, best known as one-fifth of Japanese pop group Maza Maza. Akari’s dedication to her oshi consumes her days completely – until he disgraces himself and Akari’s world goes into a tailspin.
Dead-End Memories
Japan’s internationally celebrated master storyteller returns with five stories of women on their way to healing that vividly portrays the blissful moments and everyday sorrows that surround us in everyday life A New York Times Notable Book "This is a supremely hopeful book, one that feels important because it shows that happiness, while not always easy, is still a subject worthy of art." —Brandon Taylor, The New York Times Book Review First published in Japan in 2003 and never before published in the United States, Dead-End Memories collects the stories of five women who, following sudden and painful events, quietly discover their ways back to recovery. Among the women we meet in Dead-E...
The Lonesome Bodybuilder
Winner of the Akutagawa Prize and the Kenzaburo Oe Prize, these eleven surreal tales, set in the offices, zoos, bus stops, boutiques, and homes of contemporary Japan "are reminiscent, at least to this reader, of Joy Williams and Rivka Galchen and George Saunders" (Weike Wang, The New York Times Book Review, Editors' Choice). In the English-language debut of one of Japan’s most fearlessly inventive young writers a housewife takes up bodybuilding and sees radical changes to her physique, which her workaholic husband fails to notice. A boy waits at a bus stop, mocking commuters struggling to keep their umbrellas open in a typhoon, until an old man shows him that they hold the secret to flying. A saleswoman in a clothing boutique waits endlessly on a customer who won’t come out of the fitting room, and who may or may not be human. A newlywed notices that her spouse’s features are beginning to slide around his face to match her own. In these eleven stories, the individuals who lift the curtains of their orderly homes and workplaces are confronted with the bizarre, the grotesque, the fantastic, the alien--and find a doorway to liberation.
Picnic in the Storm
Winner of the Akutagawa Prize and the Kenzaburo Oe Prize A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice 'In Yukiko Motoya's delightful new story collection, the familiar becomes unfamiliar . . . Certainly the style will remind readers of the Japanese authors Banana Yoshimoto and Sayaka Murata, but the stories themselves?and the logic, or lack thereof, within their sentences?are reminiscent, at least to this reader, of Joy Williams and Rivka Galchen and George Saunders' ?Weike Wang, New York Times Book Review A housewife takes up bodybuilding and sees radical changes to her physique - which her workaholic husband fails to notice. A boy waits at a bus stop, mocking businessmen struggling to keep...
Under the Eye of the Big Bird
From one of Japan's most brilliant and sensitive contemporary novelists, this speculative fiction masterpiece envisions an Earth where humans are nearing extinction, and rewrites our understanding of reproduction, ecology, evolution, artificial intelligence, communal life, creation, love, and the future of humanity In the distant future, humans are on the verge of extinction and have settled in small tribes across the planet under the observation and care of "Mothers." Some children are made in factories, from cells of rabbits and dolphins; some live by getting nutrients from water and light, like plants. The survival of the race depends on the interbreeding of these and other alien beings--but it is far from certain that connection, love, reproduction, and evolution will persist among the inhabitants of this faltering new world. Unfolding over fourteen interconnected episodes spanning geological eons, at once technical and pastoral, mournful and utopic, Not to Be Carried Away by the Big Bird presents an astonishing vision of the end of our species as we know it.
Dead End Memories
There was no past, no future, no words, nothing - just the light and the yellow and the scent of dry leaves in the sun. Japan's internationally celebrated storyteller returns with five stories of healing and hope. Effortlessly beautiful, nostalgic and melancholy, the stories in Dead-End Memories explore the stories of five women who, following sudden and painful events, find solace in the blissful moments in everyday life. The daughter of a restaurant owner experiences a budding romance, accompanied by the ghosts of an elderly couple. After a scandalous near-death experience, an editor gains a new lease of life. A woman seeks refuge in the apartment above her uncle's bar after being betrayed by her fiancé. As Yoshimoto's gentle, effortless prose reminds us, one true miracle can be as simple as having someone to share a meal with, and happiness is always within us if only we take a moment to see it.
