YOSHIMOTO BANANA

(P/B) KITCHEN
Kitchen juxtaposes two tales about mothers, transsexuality, bereavement, kitchens, love and tragedy in contemporary Japan. It is a startlingly original first work by Japan's brightest young literary star and is now a cult film. When Kitchen was first published in Japan in 1987 it won two of Japan's most prestigious literary prizes, climbed its way to the top of the bestseller lists, then remained there for over a year and sold millions of copies. Banana Yoshimoto was hailed as a young writer of great talent and great passion whose work has...
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(P/B) The Premonition
I had a premonition of setting out on a journey and getting lost inside a distant tide. . . It was the beginning of summer, and I was nineteen years old. Yayoi lives with her perfect, loving family - something 'like you'd see in a Spielberg movie'. But while her parents tell happy stories of her childhood, she is increasingly haunted by the sense that she's forgotten something important about her past. Deciding to take a break, she stays with her eccentric but beloved aunt Yukino. Living a life without order, Yukino seems to be protecting ...
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ΓΥΝΑΙΚΕΣ ΣΕ ΛΗΘΑΡΓΟ
Τρεις γυναίκες, τρεις ιστορίες. Κοινός παρανομαστής ο ύπνος, που «πηγαινοέρχεται σαν την παλίρροια», άλλοτε λυτρωτικός και άλλοτε εκδικητικός. Ο έρωτας και ο θάνατος, η παραίτηση και η ελπίδα, η δύναμη της μνήμης και η δύναμη της φαντασίας, είναι τα θέματα που εναλλάσσονται στα τρία αφηγήματα που θα μπορούσαν να αποτελούν μια και μόνο ιστορία. Ο αναγνώστης αισθάνεται να παρασύρεται σ’ ένα ονειρικό κόσμο και να ακροβατεί συνεχώς ανάμεσα στη φαντασία και την πραγματικότητα, σ' εκείνον τον περίεργο κόσμο που στήνει γι' αυτόν η διάσημη σε όλο ...
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(P/B) AMRITA
A celebrated actress who has died in mysterious and shocking circumstances leaves behind an unconventional extended family that includes an older sister, a woman in her twenties through whose eyes the story unfolds; a young brother who possesses mystical powers; and a fiance who is writing a novel with uncanny parallels to his own story. (From the publisher)...
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(P/B) GOODBYE TSUGUMI
An elegiac story of two young cousins coming of age at the Japanese seaside, Goodbye Tsugumi is an enchanting novel from one of Japan's finest writers. Banana Yoshimoto's novels have made her an international sensation. Now she returns with a magical, offbeat story of a deep and complicated friendship between two female cousins that ranks among her best work. Maria is the only daughter of an unmarried woman. She has grown up at the seaside alongside her cousin Tsugumi, a lifelong invalid, charismatic, spoiled and occasionally cruel. Now ...
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(P/B) KITCHEN
Kitchen juxtaposes two tales about mothers, transsexuality, bereavement, kitchens, love and tragedy in contemporary Japan. It is a startlingly original first work by Japan's brightest young literary star and is now a cult film. When Kitchen was first published in Japan in 1987 it won two of Japan's most prestigious literary prizes, climbed its way to the top of the bestseller lists, then remained there for over a year and sold millions of copies. Banana Yoshimoto was hailed as a young writer of great talent and great passion whose work has...
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(H/B) MOSHI MOSHI
In Moshi-Moshi, Yoshie's much-loved musician father has died in a suicide pact with an unknown woman. It is only when Yoshie and her mother move to Shimo-kitazawa, a traditional Tokyo neighborhood of narrow streets, quirky shops, and friendly residents that they can finally start to put their painful past behind them. However, despite their attempts to move forward, Yoshie is haunted by nightmares in which her father is looking for the phone he left behind on the day he died, or on which she is trying--unsuccessfully--to call him. Is her d...
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(P/B) ASLEEP
Banana Yoshimoto has a magical ability to animate the lives of her young characters, and here she spins the stories of three women, all bewitched into a spiritual sleep. One, mourning a lost lover, finds herself sleepwalking at night. Another, who has embarked on a relationship with a man whose wife is in a coma, finds herself suddenly unable to stay awake. A third finds her sleep haunted by another woman whom she was once pitted against in a love triangle. Sly and mystical as a ghost story, with a touch of Kafkaesque surrealism, Asleep is...
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ΚΙΤΣΕΝ
Το «Kitchen» περιλαμβάνει δύο νουβέλες: το ομώνυμο «Kitchen» και το «Moonlight Shadow». Πρωταγωνίστριες και στη μία και στην άλλη δύο νεαρές γυναίκες στην ηλικία που ακολουθεί την εφηβεία, δύο γυναίκες που έχουν γνωρίσει τον θάνατο, τη μοναξιά και τον πόνο. Τόσο η μία όσο και η άλλη, ύστερα από μια πράξη καλοσύνης, καταφέρνουν να βρουν ξανά την συναισθηματική τους ισορροπία και να αντικρίσουν τη ζωή με κάποια ελπίδα. Και στις δύο νουβέλες ο αναγνώστης μένει αμήχανος μπροστά στις περίεργες καταστάσεις που αντιμετωπίζει, οι χαρακτήρες όμως ...
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ΑΜΡΙΤΑ

ΣΑΥΡΑ

Ν.Ρ.

(P/B) HARDBOILED / HARD LUCK
HARDBOILED opens as the narrator treks high above her secluded mountain hotel on the anniversary of her lover's death. HARD LUCK opens with another female narrator, this time at the bedside of her sister, who lies in a coma. Exploring the ghosts of love, memory, and intimate secrets, these are two haunting and atmospheric tales from Japan's leading female writer. (From the publisher)...
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(P/B) LIZARD
In these six stories Yoshimoto masterfully explores themes of time, healing and fate, and how her urban, sophisticated, independent young men and women come to terms with them. Her characters find themselves caught in emotional webs that they often fail to understand, but they discover themselves and reinvent themselves through the power of the stories they tell. (From the publisher)...
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(P/B) N.P.
N.P. is the title of a last collection of short stories by a celebrated Japanese writer. Written in English while he was living in Boston, the book may never see print in his native Japan: each time a new translator takes up the task, death gets in the way. N.P. is an extraordinarily powerful story of passion and friendship, the nature of love and the taboos surrounding it, confirming Banana Yoshimoto's place as one of Japan's most important writers. (From the publisher)...
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