Spring Garden
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5.0 • 3 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Winner of the Akutagawa Prize
A sharp, photo-realistic novella of memory and thwarted hope set in modern-day Tokyo—an “unflinching . . . powerful” showcase of the best in contemporary Japanese literature (Shelf Awareness)
Divorced and cut off from his family, Taro lives alone in one of the few occupied apartments in his block, a block that is to be torn down as soon as the remaining tenants leave. Since the death of his father, Taro keeps to himself, but is soon drawn into an unusual relationship with the woman upstairs, Nishi, as she passes on the strange tale of the sky-blue house next door.
First discovered by Nishi in the little-known photo-book Spring Garden, the sky-blue house soon becomes a focus for both Nishi and Taro: of what is lost, of what has been destroyed, and of what hope may yet lie in the future for both of them, if only they can seize it.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Two lonely tenants of a Tokyo apartment complex slated for demolition come to share a strange affinity in this quiet, unusual novel, winner of Japan's Akutagawa Prize. Nishi is a comic-strip artist obsessed with the quirky sky-blue house behind her apartment and a book of photographs called Spring Garden depicting its former residents. Taro is a shy divorc whose governing principle is to avoid bother and who continues to brood over his father's death a decade earlier. The unlikely pair form a tenuous friendship, at the heart of which lies their mutual Rear Window esque fascination with the blue house, its garden, and its occupants, past and present. The plot is uneventful, but, with her spare, precise narration, Shibasaki (A Day on the Planet) 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.
