Natsuki Ikezawa has been described as the best short story writer in Japan today, and colleagues as accomplished as Nobel Prize winner Kenzaburo Oe have publicly admired his work. This is no mean achievement in a country where short fiction is as highly appreciated as the shorter forms of verse for which Japan is famous. When Ikezawa won his country's highest literary honor, the Akutagawa Prize, in 1987 for "Still Life" -- one of two longer stories in this collection of five -- readers hailed the arrival of a new voice in ...
Read More
Natsuki Ikezawa has been described as the best short story writer in Japan today, and colleagues as accomplished as Nobel Prize winner Kenzaburo Oe have publicly admired his work. This is no mean achievement in a country where short fiction is as highly appreciated as the shorter forms of verse for which Japan is famous. When Ikezawa won his country's highest literary honor, the Akutagawa Prize, in 1987 for "Still Life" -- one of two longer stories in this collection of five -- readers hailed the arrival of a new voice in Japanese fiction: clear, precise, and profound. Though thoroughly modem in its themes, however, this is not "difficult" writing: Ikezawa makes no effort to be deliberately experimental, and even his wildest flights of fancy are anchored in a reassuring normality. A pet dinosaur, for example, whose imaginary activities are faithfully recorded in the pages of one character's diary, is somehow understandable and eventually endearingly real. As the title of the prizewinning piece suggests, all these stories are in some way about people moving away from life, seeing things from a distance, as though observing their world from a spaceship moving into orbit. Here, and we hope in other collections to come, we present one of a handful of younger writers in Japan who have not abandoned serious fiction for fashionable entertainment but continue to maintain the highest level of imaginative prose.
Read Less
Add this copy of Still Lives to cart. $61.00, very good condition, Sold by ZENO'S rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from San Francisco, CA, UNITED STATES, published 1998 by Kodansha.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Tokyo. 1997. Kodansha. 1st American Edition. Very Good in Dustjacket. 4770021852. Translated from the Japanese by Dennis Keene. 227 pages. hardcover. keywords: Literature Translated Japan Asia. FROM THE PUBLISHER-Ikezawa has been described as one of the best short story writers in the world today. he won his country's highest literary award ten years ago, readers hailed the arrival of a new voice in Japanese fiction: clear, unerring, and resonant. As the title itself suggests, all four of the stories in this collection are in some way about people moving away from ordinary life, seeing things from a distance, as though looking at their world through the window of a spaceship moving into orbit. In the last and most daring piece of all, an international team is sent to explore a ruined site in northern Afghanistan. A helicopter crash reduces their number to two, a Japanese and a French-man, who decide to press on. Watched by a high, circling eagle, they find what appears to be a ruined citadel, among whose stones they hear a form of music so strange it seems to call to them from another world. And the longer they stay the deeper they are drawn into it, until they're forced to choose: to return, or to go beyond. Here, and we hope in other collections to come, readers will encounter a rare writer whose work attains the highest level of imagination, yet remains always anchored in a reassuring normality. Welcome to a brave new lyrical world. inventory #24911.
Add this copy of Still Lives to cart. $73.91, good condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 1997 by Kodansha Amer Inc.
Add this copy of Still Lives to cart. $124.57, new condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 1997 by Kodansha Amer Inc.
