Wasabi for Breakfast

by Foumiko Kometani, Mary Goebel Noguchi (Translator)

Overview

"Wasabi for Breakfast" reintroduces best-selling Japanese author Foumiko Kometani's uniquely humorous voice to American readers. Kometani is rare among Japanese writers and cultural commentators in that she has lived in the United States for most of her adult life, bringing an outsider's—and woman's—perspective to both her adopted home and her native Japan. She lives her life in between cultures, and mines that gap to provide a thoroughly modern take on both societies.

In "Family Business," Megumi, a long time resident of the United States, returns to Japan to visit her 87-year-old mother. After so many years living abroad, Megumi is almost as befuddled by the exotic intricacies of contemporary Japan as a foreigner. When her nephew runs away from home, and her elderly mother gives chase, Megumi sets off on a road trip through modern Japan—and her own past.

"1001 Raging Fires" chronicles a Japanese woman living in California during the Rodney King riots and struggling to come to terms with being an outcast from a society that itself seems to be self-immolating. Yu learns the real price of exclusion is that which your own family makes you pay.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781564788641
Publisher:	Deep Vellum Publishing
Publication date:	04/23/2013
Series:	Japanese Literature
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	202
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Foumiko Kometani was born in Osaka in 1930 and studied to be a painter before emigrating to the United States in 1960. She became a writer in her late 40s, and has since written 16 books and has won Japan's most prestigious literary prizes, including two Shinjinsho Prizes, the Akutagawa Prize, and Women's Literature Prize. She lives in Pacific Palisades, California with her husband, the writer Josh Greenfeld.