Gifted

Suzumi Suzuki

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English

Scribe Publications
01 October 2024

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

A moving portrayal of a troubled mother-daughter relationship, shortlisted for Japan's prestigious Akutagawa Prize.

In 2008, the unnamed narrator of Gifted is working as a hostess and living in Tokyo's nightlife district. One day, her estranged mother, who is seriously ill, suddenly turns up at her door.

As the mother approaches the end of her life, the two women must navigate their strained relationship, while the narrator also reckons with events happening in her own life, including the death of a close friend - all under the bright lights of Tokyo's 'sleepless town', Kabukicho.

In sharp, elegant prose, and based on the author's own experiences as a sex worker, Gifted heralds the breakthrough of an exciting new literary talent.

'In this unsentimental novella, a young woman working as a bar hostess and sex worker in Tokyo reckons with several unresolved personal traumas ... Based on Suzuki's own experiences in the adult industry, the book chronicles the young woman's wanderings from bar to bar, hospital to home, with brutal honesty.' -The New Yorker

'Demonstrates that death is the only way forward. Oozes with maternal cruelty.' -Yoko Ogawa, author of The Memory Police

'Gifted explores beauty, and the body itself, as a troubling inheritance, a complicated gift that, at least for women, belongs to you but is never fully in your control.' -Rebecca Hussey, Words Without Borders

By: Suzumi Suzuki
Imprint: Scribe Publications
Country of Publication: Australia
Dimensions: Height: 210mm, Width: 136mm, Spine: 10mm
Weight: 128g
ISBN: 9781761380440
ISBN 10: 1761380443
Pages: 144
Publication Date: 01 October 2024
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Suzumi Suzuki (Author) Suzumi Suzuki is an acclaimed Japanese sociologist and columnist. She graduated from Keio University majoring in Environment and Information Studies, and later received a master's degree from Tokyo University. She worked as an adult video actress before becoming a journalist for Nikkei Inc. She is also the author of Sell Your Body, and It's Goodbye (2016), Flowers for Love and the Womb (2017), A Prostitute's Bookshelf (2022), and Letters of Correspondence (2021), co-written with Japan's most acclaimed feminist scholar Chizuko Ueno. Gifted is her debut novel. Allison Markin Powell (Translator) Allison Markin Powell is a literary translator, editor, and publishing consultant. She received the 2020 PEN America Translation Prize for The Ten Loves of Nishino by Hiromi Kawakami. Her other translations include works by Osamu Dazai, Kanako Nishi, and Ryunosuke Akutagawa.