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Friday, June 28, 2024
#BlogTour – #BookReview of #FourSeasonsInJapan by Nick Bradley @nasubijutsu @PenguinUKBooks @RandomTTours #RandomThingsTours
I'm delighted to welcome you to my stop on the blog tour for the unique and moving Four Seasons In Japan by Nick Bradley. Thank you to Anne Cater and Penguin Books for giving me the opportunity to read and review this beautiful book. About t…
I'm delighted to welcome you to my stop on the blog tour for the unique and moving Four Seasons In Japan by Nick Bradley. Thank you to Anne Cater and Penguin Books for giving me the opportunity to read and review this beautiful book.
About the book:
From the critically acclaimed author of BBC Radio 2 Book Club Pick The Cat and The City comes a love-letter to Japanese culture, landscape, and literature, in a gorgeously crafted book within a book about literature, purpose and what it is to belong.
A despondent American translator living in Tokyo finds a lost book on the subway and embarks on a year-long journey translating it into English... Flo is sick of Tokyo. She is stuck in a rut, her translation work has dried up, and she's in a relationship that's run its course. That's until she stumbles upon a mysterious book left by a drunken passenger on the Tokyo Subway. From the very first page, Flo is transformed and immediately feels compelled to translate this forgotten novel, a decision which sets her on a path that will change her life...
It is a story about Ayako, a fierce and strict old woman who runs a coffee shop in the small town of Onomichi, where she has just taken guardianship of her grandson, Kyo. Haunted by a long-buried family tragedy, both have suffered extreme loss and feel unable to open up to each other.
As Flo follows the characters across a year in rural Japan, through the ups and downs of the pair's burgeoning relationship, she quickly realises that she needs to venture outside the pages of the book to track down its elusive author. And, as her two protagonists reveal themselves to have more in common with her life than first meets the eye, the lines between text and translator converge. The journey is just beginning.
About the author:
NICK BRADLEY holds a PhD from UEA focussing on the figure of the cat in Japanese literature. He lived in Japan for a decade, but currently teaches on the Creative Writing master's programme at the University of Cambridge. His debut novel, The Cat and The City, was published in 2020 to widespread critical acclaim.
My Review:
Four Seasons In Japan by Nick Bradley is a unique and moving book that really did take my breath away. It is so beautifully written and is a mesmerising story of love, loss, friendship and belonging that I know will stay with me for a long time to come.
In this gorgeous and intricately woven book within a book we meet Flo, an American translator who is living in Tokyo. Stuck in a rut with no work and a relationship that has run its course, Flo is fed up of life in Tokyo. Then one day she stumbles upon a book left behind by a drunken passenger on a Tokyo Subway. Smitten from the very first page, Flo takes it upon herself to translate it, a decision that will change the course of her life forever.
Within the pages of the book Flo translates we meet Ayako, an old woman who runs a coffee shop in the small town of Onomichi. She has taken guardianship of her grandson, Kyo, but the pair are haunted by a hidden family tragedy and find themselves unable to open up to each other.
Flo follows the characters through the seasons of a year in Japan but soon realises that, to find out more, she needs to track down the author of the book. And, as things become clearer, the lines between translator and the written word blur and Flo finds herself on a journey that has only just begun…
Four Seasons In Japan is a powerful and thought provoking novel that moved me beyond words, sweeping me away on a surprising journey of love, loss, friendship and hope.
A beautifully written and unique book within a book that is unlike any I have ever read before, The Four Seasons In Japan is an emotive tale that really did touch my heart and I loved every word of it.
Highly recommended.
Four Seasons In Japan by Nick Bradley is available to purchase now:
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