The story of Ellen, the 11-year old girl who stopped talking after her father died (because she felt guilty she…
Sweet Days of Discipline – by Fleur Jaeggy
There’s writing that you just couldn’t get into. And there’s writing that hooked you the moment you started reading the…
A Girl Returned – by Donatella Di Pietrantonio
“I was the Arminuta, the girl returned. I spoke another language, I no longer knew who I belonged to. The…
Life Form – by Amelie Nothomb
In just 125 pages, Nothomb addressed many different social issues in this partly autobiographical, partly epistolary novel: the gorging of…
The Nakano Thrift Shop – by Hiromi Kawakami
In this slim novel, Kawakami tells the ins and outs of the daily operation of a second-hand shop, and her…
Kitchen – by Banana Yoshimoto
This book contains two novellas, Kitchen and Moonlight Shadow. The two protagonists are both female college students suffering from the…
Beauty and Sadness – by Yasunari Kawabata
As I mentioned in an earlier post, Kawabata usually chose one aspect of Japanese culture to feature in his novels:…
Snow Country – by Yasunari Kawabata
I found it fascinating that each of Kawabata’s novels covers different Japanese traditions, be it tea ceremony, No mask, mountain…
The Sound of the Mountain – by Yasunari Kawabata
The Sound of the Mountain is a novel set in post war Japan. Shingo Ogata is a 59 year old…
