The Ten Loves of Nishino (Nishino Yukihiko no Koi to Boken)
Hiromi Kawakami, Allison Markin Powell (translation)Winner 2020 Pen Translation Prize
Originally published in Japan in 2003 under the title Nishino Yukihiko no Koi to Boken by Shinchosha, Tokyo
Best-selling & beloved Japanese author Hiromi Kawakami (The Nakano Thrift Shop) tells the story of an enigmatic man through the voices of ten remarkable women who have loved him.
"If you like Haruki Murakami & Yoko Ogawa, it's a safe bet that you'll love The Ten Loves of Nishino." — DozoDomo (France)
Each woman has succumbed, even if only for an hour, to that seductive, imprudent, & furtively feline man who drifted so naturally into their lives. Still clinging to the vivid memory of his warm breath & his indecipherable sentences, ten women tell their stories as they attempt to recreate the image of the unfathomable Nishino.
Like a modern Decameron, this humorous, sensual, & touching novel by one of Japan's best-selling & most beloved writers is a powerful & embracing portrait of the human comedy in ten voices. Driven by desires that are at once unique & common, the women in this book are modern, familiar to us, & still mysterious. A little like Nishino himself . . .
HIROMI KAWAKAMI’s acclaim for her essays, stories, & novels include the Pascal Short Story Prize for New Writers & the Akutagawa Prize. Her novel Strange Weather in Tokyo was short-listed for the 2013 Man Asian Literary Prize & the 2014 International Foreign Fiction Prize. Manazuru won the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission prize. She lives in Japan, where she taught biology & is a member of the Science Fiction Research Association.
Allison Markin Powell is a literary translator & editor in New York City. She has translated works by Osamu Dazai, Kaho Nakayama, & Motoyuki Shibata, & she was the guest editor for Words Without Borders, Japan issue.