A Hundred Years and a Day
34 Stories
-
- $9.99
-
- $9.99
Publisher Description
This ground-breaking collection from Tomoka Shibasaki, author of the acclaimed novel Spring Garden, pushes the short story to a new level.
In these stories of human connection in a contemporary, alienated world, people come together to share pieces of their lives, then part. We meet the women who share a house after the outbreak of war before going their separate ways once it is over; the man who lives in a succession of rooftop apartments; the diverging lives of two brothers who are raised as latch-key kids by factory workers; the old ramen restaurant that endures despite the demolition of all surrounding buildings; people who watch a new type of spaceship lift off from a pier that once belonged to an island resort; and more.
These 34 tales from all over the planet have the compulsive power of news reports, narrated in a crisp yet allegorical style.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Missed connections and the passage of time feature in this captivating collection by Akutagawa Prize winner Shibasaki (Spring Garden). In place of conventional titles, most of the 34 tales begin with a synopsis, such as one about the history of two entwined wisteria plants growing on an abandoned shop front. In another, a man named Katō disembarks from a train at a random stop and winds up staying for several months to date Satō, a university student who works in a local bar. Years later, when Katō revisits the town, he sees a woman who looks exactly like Satō and decides it must be her, even though she'd left years earlier to marry another man. Such misunderstandings about people and objects repeat throughout the collection, as in a story about a novel purchased in a second-hand shop by a student, who misinterprets the written message on the back page as a love letter. A later owner of the book accurately recognizes the message as note of condolence to a bereaved family. Barton's light touch preserves the mystery and longing in Shibasaki's liminal tales. Readers of Aimee Bender or Haruki Murakami will love this.
