{"product_id":"spring-garden-isbn-9781782272700","title":"Spring Garden","description":"\u003cb\u003eWinner of the Akutagawa Prize\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e A sharp, photo-realistic novella of memory and thwarted hope set in modern-day Tokyo—an “unflinching . . . powerful” showcase of the best in contemporary Japanese literature (\u003ci\u003eShelf Awareness\u003c\/i\u003e)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Divorced and cut off from his family, Taro lives alone in one of the few occupied apartments in his block, a block that is to be torn down as soon as the remaining tenants leave. Since the death of his father, Taro keeps to himself, but is soon drawn into an unusual relationship with the woman upstairs, Nishi, as she passes on the strange tale of the sky-blue house next door.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e First discovered by Nishi in the little-known photo-book \u003ci\u003eSpring Garden\u003c\/i\u003e, the sky-blue house soon becomes a focus for both Nishi and Taro: of what is lost, of what has been destroyed, and of what hope may yet lie in the future for both of them, if only they can seize it.“Like a good meditation: quiet, surprising and deeply satisfying.”\u003cbr\u003e —\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eNew York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Atmospheric, meditative story of memory and loss in a gentrifying Tokyo neighborhood . . . An elegant story that is in many ways more reminiscent of Mishima and Akutagawa than many contemporary Japanese writers.”\u003cbr\u003e —\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “\u003ci\u003eSpring Garden\u003c\/i\u003e by Tomoka Shibasaki looks at loneliness and loss with uncommon detail and understated force . . . Shibasaki's minimalist language comes across with poetic sensibility. Every word matters in this unflinching and quietly powerful novella . . . a brief, exquisitely crafted story of human connection in a contemporary, alienating society.”\u003cbr\u003e —\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eShelf Awareness for Readers\u003c\/i\u003e, starred review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Measured, understated and poetic at the right moment . . . making the novel difficult to put down.”\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eJapan Society\u003c\/i\u003e Journal (UK)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “[A] delicate, intimate novella.”\u003cbr\u003e —\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Lady \u003c\/i\u003emagazine\u003c\/b\u003eTomoka Shibasaki was born in 1973 in Osaka and began writing fiction while still in high school. After graduating from university, she took an office job but continued writing, and was shortlisted for the Bungei Prize in 1998. Her first book, \u003ci\u003eA Day on the Planet\u003c\/i\u003e, was turned into a hit movie, and \u003ci\u003eSpring Garden\u003c\/i\u003e won the prestigious Akutagawa Prize in 2014.The woman was looking at something over her firstfloor\u003cbr\u003e balcony, her hands gripping the railing, her neck\u003cbr\u003e craned forward.\u003cbr\u003e From the ground floor, Taro watched the woman. She\u003cbr\u003e did not move. The sunlight that reflected off her blackframed\u003cbr\u003e glasses meant that Taro couldn’t tell which direction\u003cbr\u003e she was looking, but she was faced straight ahead,\u003cbr\u003e towards the concrete wall and, beyond it, the house of\u003cbr\u003e Mrs Saeki, who owned the flats.\u003cbr\u003e It was a block of flats shaped like an L flipped and\u003cbr\u003e rotated so that the short section was hanging down. Taro’s\u003cbr\u003e flat was in the short section. The woman on the balcony\u003cbr\u003e was at the far end of the long section, the flat farthest\u003cbr\u003e away from his. He had happened to catch sight of her\u003cbr\u003e as he went to shut the small window looking out onto\u003cbr\u003e the courtyard—although courtyard was really too grand\u003cbr\u003e a word for that space, three metres wide with weeds\u003cbr\u003e growing in the gaps between the paving stones, and to\u003cbr\u003e top it all, a sign that read no entry. With the arrival of\u003cbr\u003e spring, the concrete wall separating the flats from Mrs\u003cbr\u003e Saeki’s house had suddenly become thick with ivy. The\u003cbr\u003e two trees growing immediately behind the wall, a maple\u003cbr\u003e and a plum, had been left untended, and their branches\u003cbr\u003e now stretched over it. Behind the trees was the two-storey\u003cbr\u003e wooden house belonging to Mrs Saeki which, to go by its\u003cbr\u003e appearance, must have been pretty old. As usual, there\u003cbr\u003e were no signs of anyone at home.\u003cbr\u003e The woman hadn’t moved an inch. From where Taro\u003cbr\u003e stood, he could see only the concrete wall and the roof\u003cbr\u003e of Mrs Saeki’s house, but he assumed that from the first\u003cbr\u003e floor the woman could probably see down to the ground\u003cbr\u003e level of the house and its garden. Still, what could have\u003cbr\u003e been so fascinating about a view like that? The most\u003cbr\u003e striking thing about the house’s red corrugated iron roof\u003cbr\u003e and its dark brown wooden walls was the extent of their\u003cbr\u003e wear and tear. It was now a year since Mrs Saeki, who’d\u003cbr\u003e been living on her own, had moved into a care home for\u003cbr\u003e seniors. She’d looked spritely enough whenever Taro saw\u003cbr\u003e her sweeping the front of her house, but apparently she\u003cbr\u003e was about to turn eighty-six. All this Taro had learnt from\u003cbr\u003e the estate agent.\u003cbr\u003e Beyond the roof of Mrs Saeki’s house, Taro could see\u003cbr\u003e the sky. It had been perfectly clear when he woke up, but\u003cbr\u003e now there were a few clouds—bright white lumps, the sort\u003cbr\u003e that usually appeared in midsummer, although it was\u003cbr\u003e only May. Looking at the tops of the clouds that bulged\u003cbr\u003e right up and towered above the rest, he thought about\u003cbr\u003e how they actually had to be several kilometres above the\u003cbr\u003e earth. The contrast between them and the deep blue of\u003cbr\u003e the sky was so strong it hurt his eyes.\u003cbr\u003e Taro imagined himself standing on a cloud. This was\u003cbr\u003e something he did often. After walking for miles, he would\u003cbr\u003e reach the cloud’s edge. Grasping the edge, he would look\u003cbr\u003e down at the city thousands of metres below. He could see\u003cbr\u003e the narrow little roads intertwined, the roofs of houses\u003cbr\u003e clustered together. Cars the size of insects zipped along\u003cbr\u003e the streets. Small aeroplanes cut across the space between\u003cbr\u003e the city and the cloud. For some reason, in this vision of\u003cbr\u003e Taro’s, the planes alone were cartoon drawings, nothing\u003cbr\u003e else. Behind their glass-fronted noses, the cockpits were\u003cbr\u003e empty. The planes made no sound. In fact, it wasn’t just\u003cbr\u003e the planes that were silent—there was no noise of any\u003cbr\u003e kind anywhere. As Taro stood up slowly, he bumped his\u003cbr\u003e head up against the top of the sky. There was nobody\u003cbr\u003e else around.\u003cbr\u003e Taro had been picturing this exact same sequence of\u003cbr\u003e events ever since he was a child. After it ran its course\u003cbr\u003e this time, he looked towards the balcony at the far end\u003cbr\u003e of the first floor and noticed that, all of a sudden, the\u003cbr\u003e scene contained a white square. Looking more closely,\u003cbr\u003e he saw that the woman had propped a piece of drawing\u003cbr\u003e paper—no, it was a sketchpad—on top of the railing. Was\u003cbr\u003e she drawing the trees, or what? The balcony was southfacing,\u003cbr\u003e and the building did not have much in the way of\u003cbr\u003e eaves. It was two o’clock in the afternoon. Surely too bright\u003cbr\u003e for sketching.\u003cbr\u003e From time to time, the woman would lean her body\u003cbr\u003e forward to get a better view of whatever she was drawing,\u003cbr\u003e and Taro would get a glimpse of her face. She had shortish\u003cbr\u003e hair in no particular style—a fringed bob, at a stretch. Taro\u003cbr\u003e had seen her around after she moved into the block in\u003cbr\u003e February, and he guessed she was in her thirties, about\u003cbr\u003e the same age as he was, maybe younger. She was short,\u003cbr\u003e and seemingly always dressed in a T-shirt and jogging\u003cbr\u003e bottoms. All of a sudden, the woman lifted her neck, and\u003cbr\u003e her head turned in Taro’s direction. Taro realized then that\u003cbr\u003e it wasn’t Mrs Saeki’s house that the woman was looking\u003cbr\u003e at. It was the one next to it, on the side of Taro’s flat: the\u003cbr\u003e sky-blue house.\u003cbr\u003e Right then, the sharp whistle of a bird pierced the air,\u003cbr\u003e and there was a rustle of leaves. In the next instant, Taro’s\u003cbr\u003e and the woman’s eyes met. Before he had time to look\u003cbr\u003e away, she had disappeared, taking her sketchpad with\u003cbr\u003e her. He heard the door to her balcony sliding shut. She\u003cbr\u003e didn’t come out again.","brand":"Pushkin Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46300061466853,"sku":"NP9781782272700","price":13.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781782272700.jpg?v=1767737131","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/spring-garden-isbn-9781782272700","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}