Kyungha, a woman living in contemporary Seoul, is burdened by the emotional toll of her past. Deeply empathetic, Kyungha experiences panic attacks and symptoms of anxiety and depression stemming from a harrowing book she wrote about a massacre in a South Korean city. When her friend Inseon suffers an accident, she asks Kyungha to travel to Jeju, an island of Korea’s south coast, to feed her pet bird which will die soon if not tended to. Arriving on Jeju in the midst of a massive blizzard, Kyungha races against the elements to reach the bird, but finds herself in a figurative space where dreams, nightmares and memories collide. phenomena in celebrity practices, cultures, politics, fandom, and economies.
Category Archive: Fiction
This stunning debut by Devika Rege explores contemporary Indian politics through a cast of characters at the end of their “quarterlife”: the soul-searching phase in one’s third decade between late-stage youth and genuine seniority.
Once upon a time, “storytellers” (who predate writers by a great margin) were respected members of the communities they served: entertainers, yes, but also playing a crucial role in preserving memories and lore by retelling old stories and creating new ones. If the blood of this tradition doesn’t actually run in Subi Taba’s veins, she is at the very least a vehicle for its spirit.
Banu Mushtaq has been peering into the homes of Muslim women in Southern India her entire life, and she doesn’t like what she sees. Husbands return from work angry, women are beaten, and children fight over food. These scenes populate Mushtaq’s short story collection, Heart Lamp. The stories have been selected from Mushtaq’s vast oeuvre and been translated from Kannada by Deepa Bhasthi to critical acclaim: winning the English PEN and landing a spot on this year’s International Booker longlist are only a few of its honours.
In one story in Shusaku Endo’s Portraits of a Mother, the narrator lies in a hospital bed after a serious operation with the vague impression that his mother is holding his hand. He wakes to the realization that this was a dream and that the “gray shadow” of his mother is nothing more than a recurrent spectre that still visits him two decades after her death. Though at first content, he soon feels resentment for the bonds that continue to bind him to her. As far as the narrator can recall, there was never a time outside of his dreams when this austere woman had shown him such affection.
With no real uniting theme, Unusual Fragments is more of a miscellany than a collection. The authors were born over a span of 78 years. Three of the stories are by women who grew up during the Pacific War—Taeko Kono (1926-2015), Takako Takahashi (1932-2013), and Tomoko Yoshida (1934-). Another is by a woman, Nobuko Takagi (1978-), who was a member of Japan’s “Lost Generation”—Japanese who graduated high school after Japan’s bubble economy popped in 1989. The only male author, Taruho Inagaki (1900-1977), died before Takagi was even born.
A pregnant woman meets a long-lost acquaintance only to have him mysteriously slip through the streets, never to be seen again; a shop owner buys an expensive mannequin yet grows haunted by its look of painted anguish; and a group of teenage boys grow infatuated with a girl-next-door before reality rudely pierces their bubble.
In the transition from spring to summer, tensions at Towa Textile are heating up. Factory workers—demanding higher wages, severance pay and other benefits—prepare for a prolonged struggle against management. With the senior executive director abroad at a textile convention and union leaders at a meeting, company director Gosuke Nishinohata is found dead by the train tracks near Kuki Station.
From the look of the cover design and the description, readers may think that Mizuki Tsujimura’s novel Lost Souls Meet Under a Full Moon is yet another example of Japanese healing (or comfort) fiction. Most Japanese healing novels are slim with an inviting cover in soft pastels. The stories center around lost individuals who hope to find happiness in their unfulfilling lives. And they often make use of magical realism. Tsujimura is one of Japan’s most highly-regarded mystery and fantasy writers and her best-known novel in English is the young adult fantasy Lonely Castle in the Mirror. Her entry into healing fiction makes sense, yet the beloved and award winning author’s book is different and more layered than stereotypical healing novels, as well as physically more substantial at almost 300 pages in Yuki Tejima’s English-language translation.
In Saou Ichikawa’s debut story Hunchback, a pendulum swings between desire and survival, told through the voice of a disabled woman in a group home. Translated from Japanese by Polly Barton, the novella has been long-listed for the International Booker Prize, and in Japan, it won the prestigious Akutagawa Prize upon release. Hilarious and provocative, Hunchback flashes between scenes from the group home and her scandalous tweets, between university assignments and swinger club erotica.
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