Hardboiled & Hard Luck

In cherished novels such as Kitchen and Goodbye Tsugumi, Banana Yoshimoto's warm, witty, and heartfelt depictions of the lives of young Japanese have earned her international acclaim and best-seller status. Her insightful, spare vision returns in two novellas possessed by the ghosts of love found and lost. In Hardboiled, the unnamed narrator is hiking in the mountains on an anniversary she has forgotten about, the anniversary of her ex-lover's death. As she nears her hotel--stopping on the way at a hillside shrine and a strange soba shop--a sense of haunting falls over her. Perhaps these eerie events will help her make peace with her loss. Hard Luck is about another young woman, whose sister is dying and lies in a coma. Kuni's fiancé left her after the accident, but his brother Sakai continues to visit, and the two of them gradually grow closer as they make peace with the impending loss of their loved one. Yoshimoto's voice is clear, assured, and deeply moving, displaying again why she is one of Japan's, and the world's, most beloved writers.

Banana Yoshimot was born in 1964. She has won numerous prizes in her native Japan, and her first book, "Kitchen, " has sold millions of copies worldwide. She lives in Tokyo. "Kitchen" and her highly praised novel, "N.P., " are both available from Washington Square Press.

Banana Youshimoto's depiction of the lives of Japanese youth has changed her country's literature and earned international acclaim. In "Hardboiled & Hard Luck, she delivers two tales of resonant grace, of young women coming to terms with change and heartbreak. In "Hardboiled." the narrator is hiking in the mountains on an anniversary she has forgotten about, the anniversary of the ex-lover's death. As she nears her hotel, a sense of haunting falls over her. That night she dreams of her ex-lover, and is visited by a woman who may not exist--perhaps these eerie events will help her make peace with her loss. "Hard Luck" is about a young woman whose sister is dying and lies in a coma. Her fiance left her after the accident, but his brother continues to visit, and as the two of them make peace with the impending loss of their loved one, they seem to find new hope for the future in their own new bond. "Hardboiled & Hard Luck is small jewel of a book, a work of resilient sweetness that will move readers deeply. "Book Page has compared Yoshimoto to "Haruki Murakami [and]. . . Anne Tyler [for her] spare and ethereal manner of wiriting and eye for the way to which terrible experiences shape one's life, "but Yoshimoto's voice, and deserved international stature, are most certainly her own.

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