- Published: 01/06/2017
- ISBN: 9781846276026
- 129x20mm
- 256 pages
The Nakano Thrift Shop
Hiromi Kawakami
Translated by Allison Markin Powell
Among the jumble of paperweights, plates, typewriters and general bric-a-brac in Mr Nakano’s thrift store, there are treasures to be found. Each piece carries its own story of love and loss – or so it seems to Hitomi, when she takes a job there working behind the till. Nor are her fellow employees any less curious or weatherworn than the items they sell. There’s the store’s owner, Mr Nakano, an enigmatic ladies’ man with several ex-wives; Sakiko, his sensuous, unreadable lover; his sister, Masayo, an artist whose free-spirited creations mask hidden sorrows. And finally there’s Hitomi’s fellow employee, Takeo, whose abrupt and taciturn manner Hitomi finds, to her consternation, increasingly disarming.
A beguiling story of love found amid odds and ends, The Nakano Thrift Shop is a heart-warming and utterly charming novel from one of Japan’s most celebrated contemporary novelists.
£7.99
Subtle, graceful, wise and threaded on a quirky humour, this exploration of the connections and disconnections between people kept me smiling long after the last page
Julia Rochester, author, The House at the Edge of the World
One for the holiday suitcase
Vogue.co.uk
Charming
Cathy Rentzenbrink, Stylist.co.uk
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‘Looking back, I never was aware of feeling that close to death, but actually if you think about it, just living every day there is a very small but definitely existing chance of death, whatever you're doing, wherever you are.’