Revenge

Author(s): Yoko Ogawa

Short Stories

A woman goes into a bakery to buy a strawberry cream tart. The place is immaculate but there is no one serving so she waits. Another customer comes in. The woman tells the new arrival that she is buying her son a treat for his birthday. Every year she buys him his favourite cake; even though he died in an accident when he was six years old. From this beginning Yoko Ogawa weaves a dark and beautiful narrative that pulls together a seemingly disconnected cast of characters. In the tradition of classical Japanese poetic collections, the stories in Revenge are linked through recurring images and motifs, as each story follows on from the one before while simultaneously introducing new characters and themes. Filled with breathtaking images, Ogawa provides us with a slice of life that is resplendent in its chaos, enthralling in its passion and chilling in its cruelty.

27.00 NZD

Stock: 0


Add to Wishlist


Product Information

A disturbing masterpiece of narrative invention and moving storytelling from one of Japan's most highly respected and bestselling writers.

Independent Foreign Fiction Award 2014.

"Ogawa is original, elegant, very disturbing. I admire any writer who dares to work on this uneasy territory - we're on the edge of the unspeakable. The stories seem to penetrate right to the heart of the world and find it a cold and eerie place. There are no narrative tricks, but the stories generate a surprising amount of tension. You feel as if you've touched an icy hand" -- Hilary Mantel "Deceptively elegant...written in such lucid, unpretentious language that reading it is like looking into a deep pool of clear water. But even in the clearest waters can lurk currents you don't see until you are in them. Dive into Yoko Ogawa's world...and you find yourself tugged by forces more felt than seen" New York Times Book Review "The odd stories of Yoko Ogawa errupt from the ordinary world as if from the unconscious or the grave... Ogawa has said her work is influenced by Haruki Murakami's magic-realist style. There are fantastic flashes, such as a woman born with a heart outside her body. Yet the overall effect is more David Lynch: the rot that lurks beneath the surface of the world... The result is spectral connectedness. Ms Ogawa understands the consolations of order within apparent randomness" Economist "Always eerie, often erotic, full of living ghosts and uncanny visitations, Yoko Ogawa's terse and spooky fiction folds Japan's supernatural tradition into her idiosyncratic brand of Asian goth" Independent "Haunting...using economical and precise language, Ogawa conveys intensity of emotion" Times Literary Supplement

Yoko Ogawa has won every major Japanese literary award including the Akutagawa and the Tanizaki Prizes. Her fiction has appeared in the New Yorker, A Public Space, and Zoetrope. Her works include The Diving Pool, a collection of three novellas, The Housekeeper and the Professor and Hotel Iris.

General Fields

  • : 9780099553939
  • : Vintage Publishing
  • : Vintage
  • : 0.139
  • : June 2014
  • : 198mm X 129mm
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : Yoko Ogawa
  • : Paperback
  • : 914
  • : 895.636
  • : 208