
Gifted
Suzumi Suzuki(Author)
Transit Books (Publisher)
Published on 1. October 2024
Book
Paperback/Softback
120 pages
979-8-89338-900-5 (ISBN)
Description
A subtle and intimate accounting of a daughter's final days with her mother, set amid the rush of Tokyo's red-light district.
Drawing on her own experiences as a hostess and adult film actor, Gifted--Suzumi Suzuki's first novel to be translated into English--offers a nuanced, frank, and intimate portrayal of the lives of a mother and daughter getting by (or not) in an industry rarely depicted authentically in literary fiction.In the last days of her mother's life, a young woman living in Tokyo's red-light district is thrust into a split existence. By day, she negotiates her new role as caregiver of an abusive parent. By night, she drifts home from the hospital, goes out with other sex-workers, thinks about quitting smoking, and numbly remembers Eri, a friend who died the summer before. Her sensitivity to the details of her surroundings grounds an otherwise unstable world, one where each interaction requires a subtle negotiation of economic and sexual power, and proximity rarely means intimacy or connection. Gifted was nominated for the 167th Akutagawa Prize in 2022.
Drawing on her own experiences as a hostess and adult film actor, Gifted--Suzumi Suzuki's first novel to be translated into English--offers a nuanced, frank, and intimate portrayal of the lives of a mother and daughter getting by (or not) in an industry rarely depicted authentically in literary fiction.In the last days of her mother's life, a young woman living in Tokyo's red-light district is thrust into a split existence. By day, she negotiates her new role as caregiver of an abusive parent. By night, she drifts home from the hospital, goes out with other sex-workers, thinks about quitting smoking, and numbly remembers Eri, a friend who died the summer before. Her sensitivity to the details of her surroundings grounds an otherwise unstable world, one where each interaction requires a subtle negotiation of economic and sexual power, and proximity rarely means intimacy or connection. Gifted was nominated for the 167th Akutagawa Prize in 2022.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
United States
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Dimensions
Height: 198 mm
Width: 129 mm
Thickness: 9 mm
Weight
140 gr
ISBN-13
979-8-89338-900-5 (9798893389005)
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Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Suzumi Suzuki is a Japanese writer. Since the release of her first book, a sociological study of actresses working in pornographic films, she has published works of both nonfiction and fiction. Suzuki's autobiographical book If You Sell Your Body, Then Goodbye! was adapted into a 2017 Eiji Uchida film. Her novel Gifted was nominated for the 167th Akutagawa Prize, and her novel Graceless was nominated for the 168th Akutagawa Prize.