Not only are there some extra stories, relating some rather personal family affairs, there’s also the fact that everyone who has attempted to translate the story into Japanese has killed themselves. Falling into the orbit of the Takases, she discovers that there is more to learn about the untranslated book ‘N.P.’. Years later, Kazami is reminded of this passage of her life when she reencounters Saki and Otohiko Takase, the writer’s children, whom she met briefly at a partly long ago. The book never appeared in Japanese as the translator committed suicide soon after, just as the writer (a Japanese man living in the US) had done years before. The start of the book sees her looking back to a relationship she had with an older man while she was at high school, a translator working on a collection of ninety-seven short stories. (translated by Ann Sherif) is the story of Kazami Kano, an English-language research assistant at a Tokyo university. One is the father of modern J-Lit, Natsume Soseki – the other… shares a name with a yellow fruit high in potassium.īanana Yoshimoto’s N.P. There’s been a mixture of modern books, old masters and some real classics (and when I say classics…), but only two writers have featured in all three editions. As we head towards the end of the third January in Japan, I’ve been looking back at all the posts I’ve written for the event over the years.
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