Translator: Emmerich, Michael
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Sayonara, gangsters
Somewhere in a future time and place, people have no names. Lovers find this inconvenient, so they begin naming each other. The two main characters settle on the following names: the woman is the Nakajima Miyuki Song Book, and the man, who teaches at a poetry school, is Sayonara, Gangsters. Their cat, who prefers milk-and-vodka…
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Bullfight
In post-Second World War Japan, Tsugami, the editor-in-chief of a newspaper, sets out to organise a bullfight. The project starts drowning in unforeseen logistical issues, while Tsugami’s relationship with his lover is also going under. Alone and focused, Tsugami persists in his bullfight plans, in a desperate and existential struggle….
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Belka, why don’t you bark?
Belka, Why Don’t You Bark? begins in 1943, when Japanese troops retreat from the Aleutian island of Kiska, leaving four military dogs behind. One of them dies in isolation, and the others are taken under the protection of U.S. troops. Meanwhile, in the USSR, a KGB military dog handler kidnaps the daughter of a Japanese…
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Manazuru : a novel
Kei, who was left alone to raise her daughter after her husband disappeared twelve years ago, finds herself drawn to the seaside town of Manazuru, a place where she tries to unlock memories from her past.
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Asleep
Already an international bestseller, “Asleep” comprises three novellas of women bewitched into a spiritual sleep. One, mourning a lost lover, finds herself sleepwalking. Another, who has embarked on a relationship with a man whose wife is in a coma, finds herself suddenly unable to stay awake. And a third finds her sleep haunted by a…
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Goodbye, Tsugumi : a novel
Having grown up by the sea with her invalid cousin Tsugumi, Maria moves to Tokyo and encounters university life and impending adulthood, and spending a last summer with her cousin, she comes to a new understanding about home and family.
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Hardboiled ; & Hard luck
Presents two novellas, one about a young woman’s dream about an ex-lover while on a hiking trip, and the other about the sister of a woman lying in a coma.
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The lake
The tale of a young woman who moves to Tokyo after the death of her mother, hoping to get over her grief and start a career as a graphic artist.
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First snow on Fuji
First published in 1958, this collection is concerned with forms of presence and absence, with being, with memory and loss of memory, with not-knowing, and with the lives of people who have been shattered by war, loss, and longing.