People From My Neighbourhood
Hiromi Kawakami author Ted Goossen translator
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Granta Books
Published:6th Aug '20
Currently unavailable, our supplier has not provided us a restock date
From the best-selling author of Strange Weather in Tokyo comes a collection of playful, delightful, delectable Japanese micro-fiction
Take a story and shrink it. Make it tiny, so small it can fit in the palm of your hand. Carry the story with you everywhere, let it sit with you while you eat, let it watch you while you sleep. Keep it safe, you never know when you might need it. In Kawakami's super short 'palm of the hand' stories the world is never quite as it should be: a small child lives under a sheet near his neighbour's house for thirty years; an apartment block leaves its visitors with strange afflictions, from fast-growing beards to an ability to channel the voices of the dead; an old man has two shadows, one docile, the other rebellious; two girls named Yoko are locked in a bitter rivalry to the death. Small but great, you'll find great delight spending time with the people in this neighbourhood.
Beguiling, with a strangeness that feels culturally rooted * Sunday Times *
Deft and funny prose, in a feather-light translation by Ted Goossen, is the signature of Hiromi Kawakami's latest collection... an intriguing and compelling bitesize read... funny, full of heart * Arts Desk *
Tempting as it is, People from My Neighbourhood is not a book to rush... The interlinking short stories in this collection are fairy tales in the best Brothers Grimm tradition: naïf, magical and frequently veering into the macabre... in a world where much is insubstantial... Kawakami's clean narrative style is very much her own * Financial Times *
Despite its brevity, you won't forget these vividly drawn characters * Happy magazine *
A surreal comedy delight... [Kawakami] bends and breaks the rules of narration, plotting, and characterisation, and the end result is a vividly realised pocket universe filled with strange people who exist to shock us into laughter at every turn...An absolute joy * Books and Bao *
Great fun and a pleasure to read * Tony's Reading List *
ISBN: 9781846276989
Dimensions: 178mm x 111mm x 7mm
Weight: 89g
128 pages