Yuko Tsushima

'Wonderfully poetic ... extraordinary freshness ... a Virginia Woolf quality' Margaret Drabble Territory of Light is the luminous story of a young woman, living alone in Tokyo with her three-year-old daughter. Its twelve, stand-alone fragments follow the first year of the narrator's separation from her husband. The novel is full of light, sometimes comforting and sometimes dangerous: sunlight streaming through windows, dappled light in the park, distant fireworks, dazzling floodwater, desaturated streetlamps and mysterious explosions. The seemingly artless prose is beautifully patterned: the cumulative effect is disarmingly powerful, and bright after-images remain in your mind for a long time afterwards.

Territory of Light

Though their house was new, the wall had been there a long time.' In these two stories, which have never before been translated into English, Tsushima shows how memories, dreams and fleeting images describe the borders of our lives.

Of Dogs and Walls

Set in 1970s Japan, this tender and poetic novel about a young, single mother struggling to find her place in the world is an early triumph by a modern Japanese master. Alone at dawn, in the heat of midsummer, a young woman named Takiko departs on foot for the hospital to give birth to a baby boy. Her pregnancy, the result of a casual affair with a married man, is a source of sorrow and shame to her abusive parents. For Takiko, however, it is a cause for reverie. Her baby, she imagines, will be hers and hers alone, a challenge but also an instrument for her long-wished-for independence. Takiko’s first year as a mother is filled with the intense bodily pleasures and pains that come from caring for a newborn, learning how to accommodate him. At first Takiko seeks refuge in the company of other women, in the maternity hospital, in her son’s nursery, but as he grows, her life becomes less circumscribed, expanding outward into previously unknown neighborhoods in her city and then beyond, into the countryside, toward a mountain that captures her imagination and feeling for a wilder freedom. First published in Japan in 1980, Woman Running in the Mountains is as urgent and necessary an account today of the experience of the female body and of a woman’s right to self-determination.

Woman Running in the Mountains

'A terrific novel' Angela Carter Koko won't do what is expected of her. Defying her family's wishes, she has brought up her eleven-year-old daughter alone in her apartment. And now, after a casual affair, she is unexpectedly pregnant again. What will this mean for her already troubled relationship with her daughter? As she faces the future, memories of her own childhood loss flood into her consciousness, threatening to overwhelm her. Combining the beauty and unease of a dream, this haunting novel is an unflinching portrayal of a woman's innermost fears and desires. 'As relevant today as when it was published ... at once powerfully uplifting and achingly sad' Japan Times

Child of Fortune

Territorio de luz

Hiromi Kawakami

Yoko Ogawa

Kono Taeko

Selamat Datang di Museum Penyiksaan

Premio Joryū Bungaku, 1978. Vuelve la autora de «Territorio de luz» con una historia dolorosamente veraz en su descripción de la feminidad y la maternidad japonesas. Koko siempre ha vivido en el presente. Afronta cada día sin mirar atrás. Pese a las presiones de su familia, se fue a vivir a un piso con su novio. Ha criado ella sola a una niña de once años mientras sobrevive dando clases particulares de piano. Mientras tanto, la sospecha de un nuevo embarazo despierta en su interior viejos anhelos, culpas eternas y esperanzas ocultas. Yuko Tsushima pone a prueba las convenciones sobre la independencia y la memoria, y nos ofrece un asfixiante baile de máscaras donde familiares, amigos y amantes se empeñan en tener la última palabra sobre cómo deberían vivir la vida las mujeres. CRÍTICA «Women's Literature Prize en 1978, Yuko Tsushima defiende en esta novela el derecho a vivir como se quiera.» —Gonzalo Torné, La lecturta «Una novela que explora la soledad, la sexualidad, la necesidad de amor y los lazos familiares en medio de la desolación de neón de Tokio.» —Angela Carter «La prosa de Tsushima es tan desnuda y vívida que incluso los detalles banales adquieren una vitalidad visceral... Una historia que se sumerge de forma inquietante en la vida de las mujeres, sin sentimentalismo ni autocompasión.» —Margaret Drabble «Tan relevante hoy como cuando se publicó... a la vez poderosamente edificante y dolorosamente triste.» —Japan Times

El hijo predilecto

Glashelder meesterwerk in de moderne Japanse literatuur In de lente verhuist een jonge vrouw met haar tweejarige dochter naar een nieuw appartement in Tokio. Ze is net gescheiden en probeert haar werk te combineren met de zorg voor haar kind. De grote ramen van het appartement laten veel licht door, en de vrouw voelt zich bevrijd. In de maanden die volgen verliest ze echter de controle over haar leven. Ze wankelt, zekerheden verdwijnen en twijfel neemt de overhand. Ze realiseert zich dat ze aan het veranderen is, maar durft niet onder ogen te zien wat er van haar wordt. Domein van licht is een verontrustende, maar ook oogverblindend mooie roman. In twaalf korte en loepzuivere hoofdstukken weet Yuko Tsushima tot de kern te komen van verlies en verlangen. Domein van licht verscheen voor het eerst in 1979, maar is recent herontdekt en maakt nu wereldwijd furore.

Yuko Tsushima

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