Hardboiled & Hard Luck

In Hardboiled, the unnamed narrator, hiking in the mountains on the anniversary of her ex-lover's death, is haunted by her past & learns to make peace with her loss. Hard Luck is about another young woman whose sister lies in a coma. As she prepares to say good-bye to her loved one, a new friendship promises hope. Yoshimoto’s voice is clear, assured, & deeply moving, displaying again why she is one of Japan’s, & the world’s, most beloved writers.

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Banana Yoshimoto has won numerous prizes in her native Japan, & her first book, Kitchen, has sold millions of copies worldwide. Her books have been translated & published in more than twenty countries. She lives in Tokyo.

Michael Emmerich’s scholarly interests in Japanese literature range from the classical, court-centered prose & poetry of the Heian period to the popular printed fiction of the early modern age, & on from there to the prose fiction of modern and contemporary times. His engagement with the literary products of these diverse periods is informed by a sensitivity to the material & visual forms that writing takes, & by an academic commitment to translation studies with its potential for approaching literature in a manner relatively unconstrained by linguistic & temporal boundaries, both among and within nations.