吉本 ばなな

A pair of thematically linked novellas from the acclaimed author of Lizard, Amrita, and Goodbye Tsugumi. In cherished novels such as Kitchen and Goodbye Tsugumi, Banana Yoshimoto’s warm, witty, and heartfelt depictions of the lives of young Japanese have earned her international acclaim and bestseller status. Her insightful, spare vision returns in two novellas possessed by the ghosts of love found and lost. In Hardboiled, the unnamed narrator is hiking in the mountains on an anniversary she has forgotten about, the anniversary of her ex-lover’s death. As she nears her hotel—stopping on the way at a hillside shrine and a strange soba shop—a sense of haunting falls over her. Perhaps these eerie events will help her make peace with her loss. Hard Luck is about another young woman, whose sister is dying and lies in a coma. Kuni’s fiancé left her after the accident, but his brother Sakai continues to visit, and the two of them gradually grow closer as they make peace with the impending loss of their loved one. Yoshimoto’s voice is clear, assured, and deeply moving, displaying again why she is one of Japan’s, and the world’s, most beloved writers.

A love affair in Argenina while send there on a business trip.

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 woman she was once pitted against in a love triangle.

A scathing comedy of social striving in the suburbs, Absurd Person Singular follows the fortunes of three couples who turn up in each other's kitchens on three successive Christmases, to hilarious and devastating effect.

Kimiko, a young writer of romance novels, goes out with Goro, who lives with Yukiko, a very distant relative of him. One evening, after visiting the aquarium in Tokyo to see the dolphins, Kimiko makes love to Goro, but understands that their romance has no future. Kimiko decides to leave Tokyo.

In Moshi-Moshi, Yoshie&#x;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 Shimo-kitazawa, 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&#x;unsuccessfully&#x;to call him. Is her dead father trying to communicate a message to her through these dreams?

Sent by his guardian to live at a Louisiana school for retarded boys, Lizard, a bright, deformed youngster, escapes with the help of a visiting actor who gives him a role in his repertory company's production of "The Tempest."