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Banana Yoshimoto

Biography

Banana Yoshimoto

Banana Yoshimoto is the author of the international bestseller KITCHEN. She has published 11 books in English translation, including GOODBYE TSUGUMI, MOSHI MOSHI, DEAD-END MEMORIES and, most recently, THE PREMONITION. Her work has been translated and published in more than 30 countries. In Italy, she won the Scanno Literary Prize in 1993, the Fendissime Literary Prize in 1996, the Maschera d’Argento Prize in 1999, and the Capri Award in 2011. She lives in Tokyo.

Banana Yoshimoto

Books by Banana Yoshimoto

written by Banana Yoshimoto, translated by Asa Yoneda - Fiction, Women's Fiction

Yayoi, a 19-year-old woman from a seemingly loving middle-class family, lately has been haunted by the feeling that she has forgotten something important from her childhood. Her premonition grows stronger day by day. As if led by it, she decides to move in with her mysterious aunt, Yukino. For as long as Yayoi can remember, Yukino has lived alone in an old gloomy single-family home. When she is not working, she spends all day in her pajamas, clipping her nails and trimming her split ends. She sometimes wakes Yayoi at 2am to be her drinking companion and watches Friday the 13th over and over to comfort herself. A child study desk, old stuffed animals --- things Yukino wants to forget --- are piled up in her backyard like a graveyard of her memories.