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(*)(Translated from the Japanese by Tom Gill) (★)(Titulo original : Hyakuen Shingaa Gokuraku Tenshi [100円シンガー極楽天使] 1.´You, know, there´s this thing we often say when we´re having a laugh at our own expense. ´´Anyway, we´re only hundred-yen singers.´´ And what´s wrong with being cheap?´ So says the irrepressible Rinka Kazuki, the ´Kid from Kyushu´, star of the little-known Kink Records. Rinka sings enka, traditional Japanese ballads, in sleazy dives where she makes most of her money from tips. Sometimes a big spender will slip her a 10,000-yen note, but often it will be only a hundred-yen coin -worth pennies. On the wrong side of thirty, with a treacherous agent, unscrupulous rivals and an unsupportive lover, she sees her hopes of finding fame, fortune and happiness dwindling fast. But her boundless optimism and quirky humour, combined with a streak of ruthless determination and a degree of self-awareness, fuel her search for unattainable love and unrealizable dreams. In the twilight world she inhabits on the seedier side of the Japanese entertainment industry, many would be crushed by the odds stacked against them, but not Rinka, one of the most memorable and engaging characters you´re likely to meet in modern Japanese literature and one of life´s survivors. This entertaining and perceptive novel will strike a chord with readers everywhere. 2.Naomi Suenaga is the author of four well-received novels, the first published in Japan in 1996 after a varied career including spells as a cartoonist´s secretary, a hostess and an enka singer. She now writes full time.) |
BASE de DATOS, Biblioteca del Centro Cultural de la Embajada de Japon
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