Revenge - Softcover

Ogawa, Yoko

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1846555027 ISBN 13: 9781846555022

Publisher: Harvill Secker, 2013

Synopsis

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.

About this title

Review:

"The odd stories of Yoko Ogawa irrupt 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)

"There are no perfect endings and certainly no heroes, just a series of interconnected lives in the city, as strange and morbid as each other but absorbing and beautiful" (Natsayi Sithole Irish Examiner)

"Haunting.using economical and precise language, Ogawa conveys intensity of emotion" (Lucy Popescu Times Literary Supplement)

"Like her better-known compatriot Haruki Murakami, Ogawa writes stories that float free of any specific culture...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)

"Revenge provides snapshots of the lives of several characters and their unsettling tales, woven together in a seamless web of elegant narrative. absorbing and beautiful in equal measure" (Press Association)

Book Description:

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

About this edition

• Publisher: Harvill Secker
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1846555027
• ISBN 13: 9781846555022
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 176