- Softcover
- Used
Seller: Open Books, Chicago, IL, U.S.A.Open Books
AbeBooks seller since October 14, 2016
Condition: Used - Very good
£ 4.99
Quantity: 1 available
Add to basketItem description from seller
Open Books is a nonprofit social venture that provides literacy experiences for thousands of readers each year through inspiring programs and creative capitalization of books.
Seller Inventory # mon0000858868
- Title
- The Place of Shells
- Author
- Ishizawa, Mai
- Publisher
- New Directions
- Publication year
- 2025
- Condition
- Very Good
- Binding
- paperback
- Language
- English
- ISBN 10
- 0811237788
- ISBN 13
- 9780811237789
Winner of the Akutagawa Prize, a masterful novel about loss and memory in the aftermath of a horrifying ecological disaster
In the summer of 2020, as Europe is beginning to open back up after the first phase of the pandemic, a young Japanese woman based in the German city of Göttingen is working on a PhD about the iconography of medieval saints. She waits at the train station to meet her old friend from graduate school, Nomiya, who died nine years earlier in the 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster in Japan, but has suddenly reemerged without any explanation.
When Nomiya arrives, the narrator guides him through Göttingen’s scale model of the solar system, talking about her studies, her roommate and their mutual friends. Yet it isn’t long before his spectral presence in the city begins to fray the narrator’s psyche and destabilize the world beyond: eerie discoveries are made in the forest, Pluto begins disappearing and reappearing, and snags run in time’s fabric. The narrative continues to spiral and unfold to include the Japanese physicist Terada Torahiko, mysteriously sprouting teeth, Saint Lucia, all set against the ever-lingering presence of death.
With a literary style reminiscent of W. G. Sebald, Yoko Tawada, and Yu Miri, The Place of Shells is a hypnotic, poetic novel that explores the ebbing and flowing of memory, its physical manifestations, its strange and sudden metaphors, and the overwhelming stranglehold of trauma.
"Synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
About the Author
Polly Barton is a writer and literary translator from the Japanese. Her translations include Butter by Asako Yuzuki and Hunchback by Saou Ichikawa. She has published two works of non-fiction, Fifty Sounds and Porn: An Oral History; What Am I, A Deer? is her debut novel.
"About the title" may belong to another edition of this title.
Open Books
Chicago, IL, U.S.A.
AbeBooks seller since October 14, 2016
Shipping rates within U.S.A.
| Item | 5 to 14 business days | 3 to 6 business days |
|---|---|---|
| First item | £ 2.99 | £ 5.98 |
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Open Books is a nonprofit social venture that provides literacy experiences for thousands of readers each year through inspiring programs and creative capitalization of books. We are a 501(c)3 with all proceeds going to our literacy enrichment programs.
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Used BooksSeller's business information
Open Books, Ltd.
651 W. Lake St.
Chicago, IL U.S.A. 60661
Open Books, Ltd.
651 W. Lake Street
Chicago, IL 60661
orders@open-books.org
312-475-1355
EIN: 20-4830666
501(c)3
Ryan Jackson, Operations Director (0% share)
VAT: N/A
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