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:	9788483837856
Publisher:	Tusquets Editores
Publication date:	11/26/2013
Series:	Andanzas , #11
Sold by:	Planeta
Format:	eBook
Pages:	192
File size:	867 KB
Language:	Spanish

About the Author

Banana Yoshimoto (Tokio, 1964) estudió literatura en la Universidad de Nihon. Con Kitchen, su primera novela, ganó el Newcomer Writers Prize en 1987, cuando todavía era una estudiante universitaria, y un año después se le concedía por la misma obra el premio literario Izumi Kyoka. Entre otros galardones, ha recibido en Italia el prestigioso Premio Scanno. Yoshimoto es ya autora de una dilatada pero exquisita obra compuesta de ensayos, novelas como N.P., Amrita y Tsugumi, y los libros de relatos Sueño profundo, Recuerdos de un callejón sin salida y Lagartija. Desde 1991, año en que Tusquets Editores publicó Kitchen, Yoshimoto se ha convertido, junto con Haruki Murakami, en una de las voces más prestigiosas de la literatura japonesa actual.

Editorial Reviews

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

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

Denver Post

"Kitchen" (1993) was a surprise hit last year for young Tokyo author Yoshimoto, so expectations will be high for this taut little melodrama. Yoshimoto has a distinctively pop, bemused, and telegraphic writing style. Her new novel's enigmatic title, "NP", stands for "North Point," a sad old song that was a favorite of a writer named Sarao Takese, who used it as the title of a collection of 97 stories. After his suicide, a 98th story surfaces and becomes, or at least is rumored to be, the catalyst for two more suicides. Those deaths, and the 98th story's incestuous theme, set the fateful tone for several tense little romances. The narrator, a pretty young woman named Kazami, is amusing, sensitive, and high-strung. She becomes fascinated with Sarao Takese's children: the twins, Saki and Otohiko, and Sui, their half sister and, problematically, Otohiko's lover. Kazami finds herself attracted both to Sui, which surprises her, since she has never been in love with a woman before, and to Otohiko. Moments of telepathy and extravagant behavior lend a kooky air of mysticism and spontaneity to the proceedings and deepen our wonder at the dangers and idiosyncrasies of love. Yoshimoto's fans won't be disappointed.

Donna Seaman

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