Ikezawa, Natsuki

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 ISBN: 4770021852.