Spring Garden
Tomoka Shibasaki author Polly Barton translator
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Pushkin Press
Published:24th Oct '24
Should be back in stock very soon
Taro is divorced, unhappy in his job, and living in a half-empty building that is about to be torn down. One summer morning, he sees a fellow resident climbing over the wall to the next-door house. She says she is called Nishi, and invites herself inside. It emerges that Nishi's fascination with this pale blue house began in her student days twenty years before, and came from a book of photos called "Spring Garden" from decades earlier. As the summer draws to a close, Nishi, Taro and the new family that has moved into the old house come together and drift apart, leaving the reader with a sense of their whole life in just a few vivid snapshots.
A delicate, intimate novella * The Lady *
Shibasaki's writing is measured, understated and poetic at the right moments... difficult to put down... Spring Garden is a brief, compassionate tale about loss, friendship and architecture, and the many ways we can live our lives * The Japan Society *
Shibasaki expertly weaves a sense of foreboding * Asymptote *
Atmospheric, meditative story of memory and loss in a gentrifying Tokyo neighbourhood... an elegant story that is in many ways more reminiscent of Mishima and Akutagawa than many contemporary Japanese writers * Kirkus Reviews *
With her spare, precise narration, Shibasaki... keeps the story moving swiftly. Shibasaki transforms the mundane minutiae of Taro's and Nishi's lives into a thoughtful exploration of home, loss, and reconstruction * Publishers Weekly *
A master class in novel writing... Tomoka Shibasaki rightly won the Akutagawa Prize in 2014 for this sublime novella of dislocation and regret, and Polly Barton's light, understated translation does it immense justice * Japan Times *
This gentle story about people brought together by places is like a good meditation: quiet, surprising and deeply satisfying * New York Times Book Review *
Looks at loneliness and loss with uncommon detail and understated force... Shibasaki's minimalist language comes across with poetic sensibility. Every word matters in this unflinching and quietly powerful novella... a brief, exquisitely crafted story of human connection in a contemporary, alienating society * Shelf Awareness (starred review) *
ISBN: 9781805331452
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
160 pages