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Hiromi Kawakami

Biography

Hiromi Kawakami

Hiromi Kawakami was born in Tokyo in 1958. Her first novel, KAMISAMA (GOD), was published in 1994. In 1996, she was awarded the Akutagawa Prize for HEBI O FUMU (TREAD ON A SNAKE), and in 2001 she won the Tanizaki Prize for her novel SENSEI NO KABAN (STRANGE WEATHER IN TOKYO), which became an international bestseller. STRANGE WEATHER IN TOKYO was shortlisted for the 2013 Man Asian Literary Prize and the 2014 International Foreign Fiction Prize. Hiromi Kawakami has contributed to editions of Granta in both the UK and Japan and is one of Japan’s most popular contemporary novelists.

Hiromi Kawakami

Books by Hiromi Kawakami

People from My Neighborhood: Stories
written by Hiromi Kawakami, translated by Ted Goossen - Fiction, Short Stories

A bossy child who lives under a white cloth near a tree; a schoolgirl who keeps dolls' brains in a desk drawer; an old man with two shadows, one docile and one rebellious; a diplomat no one has ever seen who goes fishing at an artificial lake no one has ever heard of. These are some of the inhabitants of PEOPLE FROM MY NEIGHBORHOOD. In their lives, details of the local and everyday --- the lunch menu at a tiny drinking place called the Love, the color and shape of the roof of the tax office --- slip into accounts of duels, prophetic dreams, revolutions, and visitations from ghosts and gods. In 26 "palm of the hand" stories --- fictions small enough to fit in the palm of one's hand and brief enough to allow for dipping in and out --- Hiromi Kawakami creates a universe ruled by mystery and transformation.