Katie Kitamura

"A perfect novel--taut and seductive." --Brandon Taylor, author of Real Life and Filthy Animals "Intimacies is a haunting, precise, and morally astute novel that reads like a psychological thriller.... Katie Kitamura is a wonder." --Dana Spiotta, author of Innocents and Others and Eat the Document A novel from the author of A Separation, an electrifying story about a woman caught between many truths. An interpreter has come to The Hague to escape New York and work at the International Court. A woman of many languages and identities, she is looking for a place to finally call home. She's drawn into simmering personal dramas: her lover, Adriaan, is separated from his wife but still entangled in his marriage. Her friend Jana witnesses a seemingly random act of violence, a crime the interpreter becomes increasingly obsessed with as she befriends the victim's sister. And she's pulled into an explosive political controversy when she's asked to interpret for a former president accused of war crimes. A woman of quiet passion, she confronts power, love, and violence, both in her personal intimacies and in her work at the Court. She is soon pushed to the precipice, where betrayal and heartbreak threaten to overwhelm her, forcing her to decide what she wants from her life.

Intimacies

Audition

A Novel

A young woman has agreed with her faithless husband: it's time for them to separate. For the moment it's a private matter, a secret between the two of them. As she begins her new life, alone, she gets word that her ex-husband has gone missing in a remote region in the rugged southern Peloponnese. Reluctantly she agrees to go and search for him, still keeping their split to herself. In her heart, she's not even sure if she wants to find him. Adrift in the wild and barren landscape, she traces the failure of their relationship, and finds that she understands less than she thought about the man she used to love. A story of intimacy, infidelity and compassion, A Separation is about the gulf that divides us from the lives of others and the narratives we create to mask our true emotions. As the narrator reflects upon her love for a man who may never have been what he appeared, Kitamura propels us into the experience of a woman on the brink of catastrophe. A Separation is a riveting masterpiece of absence and presence that will leave the reader astonished, and transfixed.

A Separation

Terra Firma

Katie Kitamura is travelling to Osaka to visit her parents. As her train undulates across the neat landscape, she reflects on her assorted memories of Japan - her amusing brushes with pop culture, her family relationships - and contemplates the country’s tumultuous history after the Hiroshima bombing. Through her experiences and observations she tries to put together a coherent picture of Japan’s identity, and to discover where she fits in a culture of which, as a Japanese-American, she is both a member and an outsider. The result is a brave and thoughtful exploration of aspiration, belonging, change and decay.

A Journey Through Modern Japan

Japanese for Travellers

When the young Carine enters their lives, Tom and his controlling father, who have fashioned a strained peace on their farm, reach the breaking point, while a volcanic eruption thrusts a discontented nation into open revolution.

Gone to the Forest

NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST, TIME MAGAZINE, MARIE CLAIRE, BOOK RIOT, ESQUIRE, KIRKUS, PUBLISHERS WEEKLY AND MORE! ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2025 BOOKER PRIZE INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER “A tightly wound family drama that reads like a psychological thriller."—NPR “Bold, stark, genre-bending, Audition will haunt your dreams.”—The Boston Globe One woman, the performance of a lifetime. Or two. An exhilarating, destabilizing Möbius strip of a novel that asks whether we ever really know the people we love. Two people meet for lunch in a Manhattan restaurant. She’s an accomplished actress in rehearsals for an upcoming premiere. He’s attractive, troubling, young—young enough to be her son. Who is he to her, and who is she to him? In this compulsively readable, brilliantly constructed novel, two competing narratives unspool, rewriting our understanding of the roles we play every day – partner, parent, creator, muse – and the truths every performance masks, especially from those who think they know us most intimately. Taut and hypnotic, Audition is Katie Kitamura at her virtuosic best.

**LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2025** A GUARDIAN, OBSERVER, FINANCIAL TIMES, BBC, TIME, VOGUE, MARIE CLAIRE, ESQUIRE and ROLLING STONE BOOK TO READ IN 2025 'Slick, sharp, strange and singular . . . You'll gulp this novel down in one in-breath' SAMANTHA HARVEY, Booker Prize-winning author of Orbital 'A lightning bolt of a novel' FINANCIAL TIMES 'I'm not sure there's anyone better writing in America today' ALEX PRESTON, Observer One woman, the performance of a lifetime. Or two. An exhilarating, destabilising novel that asks whether we ever really know the people we love Two people meet for lunch in a Manhattan restaurant. She's an accomplished actress in rehearsals for an upcoming premiere. He's attractive, troubling, young - young enough to be her son. Who is he to her, and who is she to him? In this compulsively readable, brilliantly constructed novel, two competing narratives unspool, rewriting our understanding of the roles we play every day - partner, parent, creator, muse - and the truths every performance masks, especially from those who think they know us most intimately. Taut and hypnotic, Audition is Katie Kitamura at her virtuosic best.

ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR FINALIST FOR THE 2025 BOOKER PRIZE INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER “A tightly wound family drama that reads like a psychological thriller."—NPR “Bold, stark, genre-bending, Audition will haunt your dreams.”—The Boston Globe One woman, the performance of a lifetime. Or two. An exhilarating, destabilizing Möbius strip of a novel that asks whether we ever really know the people we love. Two people meet for lunch in a Manhattan restaurant. She’s an accomplished actress in rehearsals for an upcoming premiere. He’s attractive, troubling, young—young enough to be her son. Who is he to her, and who is she to him? In this compulsively readable, brilliantly constructed novel, two competing narratives unspool, rewriting our understanding of the roles we play every day – partner, parent, creator, muse – and the truths every performance masks, especially from those who think they know us most intimately. Taut and hypnotic, Audition is Katie Kitamura at her virtuosic best.

An interpreter has come to The Hague to escape New York and work at the International Court. A woman of many languages and identities, she is looking for a place to finally call home. She's drawn into simmering personal dramas: her lover, Adriaan, is separated from his wife but still entangled in his marriage. Her friend Jana witnesses a seemingly random act of violence, a crime the interpreter becomes increasingly obsessed with as she befriends the victim's sister. And she's pulled into an explosive political controversy when she's asked to interpret for a former president accused of war crimes. A woman of quiet passion, she confronts power, love, and violence, both in her personal intimacies and in her work at the Court. She is soon pushed to the precipice, where betrayal and heartbreak threaten to overwhelm her, forcing her to decide what she wants from her life.

Enas chorismos / Ένας χωρισμός

Tra le nostre parole

Separationen

Rozstanie

Spanning three generations of life in post-war Japan, and questioning collective memory and personal and national identity, this work provides an exploration of aspiration, belonging, decay and change.

A Journey

La donna che racconta in prima persona decide, d’accordo con il marito, per la separazione, che però deve restare per il momento segreta. Intanto le arriva la notizia che Christopher è introvabile, in una regione della Grecia dove sta facendo ricerche per un libro di antropologia. Benché riluttante, si convince ad andarlo a cercare, e scopre via via di non conoscere come credeva l’uomo che ha sposato. L’indagine, anche introspettiva, della protagonista diventa da un certo punto in poi la ricerca dell’autore di un delitto inspiegabile. Ma la narrazione è ancora pervasa da una vena di antipathos, fredda, analitica, distaccata quasi quanto quella di una polizia indifferente. Una vicenda di infedeltà e di segreti, Una separazione riguarda l’incolmabile distanza che ci separa dalla vita degli altri e le storie che raccontiamo a noi stessi per fingere di colmarla. La scrittura di Kitamura è eccellente, anche nel rievocare situazioni e aneddoti solo in apparenza poco importanti: sembra divagare, e invece invita il lettore, sempre più perplesso, ma anche sempre più incuriosito, a girare pagina. Vittima del marito, la giovane protagonista riscuote subito le simpatie del lettore, che poi però comincia a farsi parecchie domande. Lo stile è chiaro, algido, a tratti minimalista, ma anche vivido, preciso, e non annoia mai. L’ambientazione è perfetta, priva di esotismi e pregiudizi, proprio come nei tanti romanzi che Patricia Highsmith ambienta all’estero.

Una separazione

Una novela psicológica imponente en la que Katie Kitamura se acerca al thriller y al suspense para ahondar en la infidelidad, el impulso de conservar y la necesidad de dejar ir tras una separación. «Electrizante. [...] La leí de una sentada, aguantando la respiración.» The Guardian Una mujer viaja a Grecia tras los pasos de su marido desaparecido. La pareja había decidido separarse, y ella deambula ahora por una región remota al sur del Peloponeso sin estar segura de querer encontrarle. Esta inquietante novela de suspense psicológico nos sitúa en un paisaje salvaje y estéril arrasado por una oleada de incendios, una tierra quemada por donde la protagonista rastreará los fracasos de su relación para descubrir que apenas conoce al hombre que una vez amó. En esta especie de limbo emocional, Kitamura despliega con exquisita precisión el descenso de una mujer a los infiernos. Feroz e hipnótica,la historia combina el misterio con la introspección para diseccionar las emociones que emanan de una separación. La pena, el odio y el deseo se mezclan en una protagonista que deberá asimilar las revelaciones sobre lo que un día fue su vida conyugal. Por medio de una prosa intensa y perturbadora se mezclan el ambiente hitchcockiano y la tensión de los thrillers de Patricia Highsmith. Kitamura firma una obra maestra sobre la infidelidad, el impulso de conservar y la necesidad de dejar ir; una novela fría y de combustión lenta que se lee con avidez y resuena durante largo tiempo. Críticas: «Una novela tan constante, tan consecuente a la hora de seguir su camino, que incluso pequeñas desviaciones parecen cargadas de significado. Maravillosa.» Karl Ove Knausgaard, autor de Mi lucha «Un retrato sobrio e imponente de un distanciamiento matrimonial. [...] Una reflexión hipnótica sobre la infidelidad y el desconocimiento del cónyuge. [...] Una novela minuciosa sobre una infidelidad que inquieta a los personajes y a los lectores.» Kirkus «El paisaje quemado, la desaparición de un hombre, el tono brillantemente frío y preciso y, a la vez, amenazador y agitado del narrador, hacen de Una separación una obra de arte absolutamente fascinante.» Rachel Kushner «Kitamura no solo ha escrito una novela increíblemente emocionante, también es capaz de explorar las emociones de sus personajes con una precisión admirable. Rara vez se aprende tanto sobre los deseos y peligros de una relación.» Der Spiegel «Con la fuerza propulsiva de un thriller, Una separación reflexiona sobre la muerte de un matrimonio, el vínculo enigmático entre autor y lector, y el desequilibrio de poder dentro de una relación desigual, sea literaria o romántica.» Washington Independent Review of Books «La destreza pura de su narrativa es auténticamente excitante.» New York Magazine «Kitamura entreteje una novela con un poder silencioso, debido principalmente a una voz narrativa que es tan sutilmente dominante -tan consciente y perceptiva, repleta de un humor seco pero empático- que es un desafío no seguir su travesía de una sentada.» Harper's Bazaar

Katie Kitamura

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