N.P

by Banana Yoshimoto

Overview

"Bananamania" has returned in an enchanting new novel of uncanny sulbtlety, style, magic, and mystery that Frank Ramirez of the South Bend Tribune declares is "every bit as good as Yoskimoto's first book ... perhaps better."

A celebrated Japanese writer has committed suicide, leaving behind a collection of stories written in English, N.P. But the book may never be published in his native Japan: each translator who takes up the ninety-eighth story chooses death too -- including Kazami Kano's boyfriend, Shoji. Haunted by Shoji's death, Kazami is inexorably drawn to three young people whose lives are intimately bound to the late writer and his work. Over the course of an astonishing summer, she will discover the truth behind the ninety-eighth story -- and she will come to believe that "everytking that had happened was shockingly beautiful enough to make you crazy."

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9788483833674
Publisher:	Tusquets Editores
Publication date:	01/01/2012
Edition description:	Spanish-language Edition
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	4.90(w) x 7.70(h) x 0.60(d)
Language:	Spanish

About the Author

Banana Yoshimoto was born in 1964. She has won numerous prizes in her native Japan and her first book Kitchen has sold millions of copies worldwide. She lives in Tokyo. Kitchen is available from Washington Square Press.

Editorial Reviews

The disturbing, ironic, relentless clarity of Kazami's voice casts a spell...
—Robert Johnson

Denver Post

Miraculous....[A] poignant achievement that draws its power from an atmosphere of earnestness—from that honesty of youth, untouched by cynicism....deceptively simple.
—Kathleen Byrne

Toronto Globe and Mail

Japan's leading pop novelist follows her successful debut (Kitchen, 1993) with an ambitious novel of darker themes—incest, suicide, and the supernatural—that recalls more classic Japanese fiction. The narrator, a twentysomething translator named Kazami, was once the lover of the famous translator Shoji, who committed suicide shortly after completing his translation of the 98th story by the author of NP—the title of the volume of 97 short stories written by a middle-aged Japanese writer, Sarao Takase, who also committed suicide shortly after writing the 98th story. Since another translator of this story has also committed suicide, the story—about a father who abandons his family, leads a wild life, then seduces a woman who turns out to be his daughter—has acquired an understandably sinister reputation. Yoshimoto's novel begins as Kazami, troubled by mysterious intimations of danger and still mourning her dead love, meets up with Saki and Otochiko, adult children of NP's author. The three, who have much in common, including unhappy childhoods, become friends, and Saki and Kazami grow especially close. But then Kazami has a startling encounter with the enigmatic but very attractive Sui. Sui is also a daughter of NP's author—as well as the former mistress of translator Shoji—and the real-life inspiration for the 98th story. Currently the lover of half-brother Otochiko, she is guilt-ridden and grieving to the point that she and Otochiko frequently discuss the possibility of a "love suicide." But as the summer progresses, the four find ways—some dramatic, some banal—of expiating their feelings for the past and one another; and Kazami, a realsurvivor, now appreciates that "everything that had happened was shockingly beautiful, enough to make you crazy." A contemporary, hip treatment of a potentially lurid plot makes for a read that nonetheless resonates with echoes of the past. Offbeat but sound. (First printing of 50,000)

Kirkus Reviews