Penguin Modern. Tom 43. Of Dogs and Walls

Koko won't do what is expected of her. Defying her family's wishes, she has brought up her eleven-year-old daughter alone in her apartment. And now, after a casual affair, she is unexpectedly pregnant again. What will this mean for her already troubled relationship with her daughter? As she faces the future, memories of her own childhood loss flood into her consciousness, threatening to overwhelm her.

'Wonderfully poetic ... extraordinary freshness ... a Virginia Woolf quality' Margaret Drabble Territory of Light is the radiant story of a young woman, living alone in Tokyo with her two-year-old daughter. Its twelve chapters follow the first year of the narrator's separation from her husband. The novel is full of light, sometimes comforting and sometimes dangerous: sunlight streaming through windows, dappled light in the park, distant fireworks, dazzling floodwater, de-saturated streetlamps and mysterious explosions. The delicate prose is beautifully patterned: the cumulative effect is disarmingly powerful and bright after-images remain in your mind for a long time.

Child of Fortune is deceptively gentle and dreamlike, teetering on the edge of tragedy. It covers a year in the life of a single mother with an eleven-year-old daughter, combining a complex interior world with memorably visual imagery. The narrative is patterned with themes of loss, despair and fragmentation. It follows the course of an unexpected pregnancy which threatens to sever frayed family bonds. The story is interwoven with repressed memories of childhood dreams, missed opportunities and a trio of unsatisfactory men. There is darkness in the novel, but it is not ultimately depressing, and it concludes with a sense of optimism.

Introducing Little Clothbound Classics: irresistible, mini editions of short stories, novellas and essays from the world's greatest writers, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith. Celebrating the range and diversity of Penguin Classics, they take us from snowy Japan to springtime Vienna, from haunted New England to a sun-drenched Mediterranean island, and from a game of chess on the ocean to a love story on the moon. Beautifully designed and printed, these collectible editions are bound in colourful, tactile cloth and stamped with foil. Territory of Light is the radiant story of a young woman, living alone in Tokyo with her two-year-old daughter, in her first year of separation from her husband. At once tender and lacerating, luminous and unsettling, Territory of Light is a...

Jestem, tęsknię, mówię (oryginalny tytuł Watashi, tzn. Ja) jest zbiorem opowiadań wybitnej japońskiej pisarki Yūko Tsushimy (1947-2016). Jest ona córką legendarnego pisarza Osamu Dazaia (1909-1948), który popełnił samobójstwo wraz z kochanką zaledwie rok po narodzinach córki. Gdy miała trzynaście lat, na zapalenie płuc zmarł jej starszy, cierpiący na zespół Downa brat. Przywiązanie i tęsknota za „nieobecnymi” jest jednym z głównych wątków twórczości Tsushimy, co wyraźnie odczuje czytelnik Jestem, mówię, tęsknię. Jest to zbiór piętnastu refleksyjnych miniatur z narracją w pierwszej osobie, w których autorka wykorzystuje wątki autobiograficzne, wspomina bliskich: rodzeństwo, matkę, kolegów ze szkoły. Czasem są to wspomnienia sprzed wielu lat,...