The Housekeeper and the Professor: ‘a poignant tale of beauty, heart and sorrow’ Publishers Weekly

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Yoko Ogawa Stephen Snyder

The Housekeeper and the Professor

‘a poignant tale of beauty, heart and sorrow’ Publishers Weekly

Yoko Ogawa, Stephen Snyder

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English

Vintage
01 July 2010

Fiction & Literature; Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945); Fiction in translation

An enchanting story about what it means to live in the present, and about the curious equations that can create a family where one before did not exist.

He is a brilliant maths professor with a peculiar problem - ever since a traumatic head injury seventeen years ago, he has lived with only eighty minutes of short-term memory.

She is a sensitive but astute young housekeeper who is entrusted to take care of him.

Each morning, as the Professor and the Housekeeper are reintroduced to one another, a strange, beautiful relationship blossoms between them. The Professor may not remember what he had for breakfast, but his mind is still alive with elegant equations from the past. He devises clever maths riddles - based on her shoe size or her birthday - and the numbers reveal a sheltering and poetic world to both the Housekeeper and her ten-year-old son. With each new equation, the three lost souls forge an affection more mysterious than imaginary numbers, and a bond that runs deeper than memory.

By: Yoko Ogawa
Translated by: Stephen Snyder
Imprint: Vintage
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 197mm, Width: 129mm, Spine: 12mm
Weight: 141g
ISBN: 9780099521341
ISBN 10: 0099521342
Pages: 192
Publication Date: 01 July 2010
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Since 1988, Yoko Ogawa has written more than 20 works of fiction and non-fiction, and has won every major Japanese literary award. Her fiction has appeared in the New Yorker, A Public Space, and Zoetrope.

Reviews for The Housekeeper and the Professor: ‘a poignant tale of beauty, heart and sorrow’ Publishers Weekly

Highly original. Infinitely charming. And ever so touching. * Paul Auster * A perfectly sustained novel (a tribute to Stephen Snyder's smooth translation); like a note prolonged...a pause enabling us to peer intently into the lives of its characters...has all the charm and restraint of any by Ishiguro and the whimsy of Murakami * Los Angeles Times * Beautiful...the extraordinary Yoko Ogawa casts her spell. Never before has the beauty of maths been so lovingly explored...a tender, gentle book...Ogawa is an original and establishes a world in a paragraph..This is a tale which will leave the reader gasping...Hopefully more of her exciting, thoughtful fiction is heading our way. * Irish Times * Its unnamed characters suggest archetype or myth; its rapturous concentration on the details of weather and cooking provide a satisfyingly textured foundation * Guardian * Alive with mysteries both mathematical and personal, this novel has the pared-down elegance of an equation * Oprah magazine *