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(*) (trans. by Margaret Mitsutani) (★)(1.Told in two parts, Mitsuyo Kakuta´s second novel in English compellingly depicts a woman´s love for the child she has kidnapped--and what it is like to be that child after she is returned to her family at the age of four. The novel opens in 1985. Kiwako Nonomiya is distraught after the married man she had been in love with manipulates her into having an abortion, then stops seeing her, reneging on his promise to get a divorce. One morning, while he and his wife are out, Kiwako sneaks into their home to get a look at their six-month-old child. But one look, one touch, is all it takes. Without a thought for the consequences, she carries the baby away. What follows is a dramaticfirst-person account of Kiwako´s life on the run. For three and a half years she eludes the authorities, moving from one part of the country to the next seeking a safe place to raise the child--from Tokyo to Nagoya, to an all-female commune run by a religious cult near Nara, to a peaceful life on an island in the Inland Sea, with its many festivals. Throughout her flight, Kiwako commands our sympathy despite the nagging of our conscience. The second part takes place in 2005. Erina, the abducted child, is now twenty and living on her own. She has few memories of her life with Kiwako, and only manages to piece together what happened by reading about the events in oldnewspapers and magazines. She struggles with her identity. The past seems to repeat itself. Will she turn out like Kiwako--´the worst person in the world´, her mother tells her--or will she break the cycle and find her own future? Why are we who we are? What does it mean to be a mother? And can we control our own destiny? These are the questions this riveting novel asks. 2.Mitsuyo Kakuta was born in Yokohama, Japan, and graduated from Waseda University, where she majored in creative writing. She is the author of ´Woman on the Other Shore´and more than thirty other novels and short story collections. She has won several major literary awards, including the Chuo Koron Literary Prize for ´The Eighth Day´and the Naoki Prize for´Woman on the Other Shore´. Her short stories have appeared in ´Asia Literary Review´ and ´Japanese Literature Today´.) |
BASE de DATOS, Biblioteca del Centro Cultural de la Embajada de Japon
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