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The lonesome bodybuilder : stories / Yukiko Motoya ; translated from the Japanese by Asa Yoneda.

By: Contributor(s): Material type: TextTextLanguage: English Original language: Japanese Publisher: New York : Soft Skull, 2018Copyright date: ©2018Edition: First Soft Skull editionDescription: x, 209 pages ; 21 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9781593766788
  • 1593766785
Uniform titles:
  • Short stories. Selections. English
Subject(s): Genre/Form:
Contents:
The lonesome bodybuilder -- Fitting room -- Typhoon -- I called you by name -- An exotic marriage -- Paprika Jiro -- How to burden the girl -- The Women -- Q&A -- The dogs -- The straw husband.
Summary: "A housewife takes up bodybuilding and sees radical changes to her physique, which her workaholic husband fails to notice. A boy waits at a bus stop, mocking commuters struggling to keep their umbrellas open in a typhoon, until an old man shows him that they hold the secret to flying. A saleswoman in a clothing boutique waits endlessly on a customer who won't come out of the fitting room, and who may or may not be human. A newlywed notices that her spouse's features are beginning to slide around his face to match her own. In these eleven stories, the individuals who lift the curtains of their orderly homes and workplaces are confronted with the bizarre, the grotesque, the fantastic, the alien--and find a doorway to liberation. The English-language debut of one of Japan's most fearlessly inventive young writers" -- Back cover.
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library Fiction Motoya, Yukiko Available 33111009293537
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Winner of the Akutagawa Prize and the Kenzaburo Oe Prize, these eleven surreal tales, set in the offices, zoos, bus stops, boutiques, and homes of contemporary Japan "are reminiscent, at least to this reader, of Joy Williams and Rivka Galchen and George Saunders" (Weike Wang, The New York Times Book Review , Editors' Choice).

In the English-language debut of one of Japan's most fearlessly inventive young writers a housewife takes up bodybuilding and sees radical changes to her physique, which her workaholic husband fails to notice. A boy waits at a bus stop, mocking commuters struggling to keep their umbrellas open in a typhoon, until an old man shows him that they hold the secret to flying. A saleswoman in a clothing boutique waits endlessly on a customer who won't come out of the fitting room, and who may or may not be human. A newlywed notices that her spouse's features are beginning to slide around his face to match her own.

In these eleven stories, the individuals who lift the curtains of their orderly homes and workplaces are confronted with the bizarre, the grotesque, the fantastic, the alien--and find a doorway to liberation.

"Arashi no Pikunikku © 2012 by Yukiko Motoya and Irui kon'in tan © 2016 by Yukiko Motoya. First published in Japan in 2012, 2016 by Kodansha Ltd., Tokyo."

The lonesome bodybuilder -- Fitting room -- Typhoon -- I called you by name -- An exotic marriage -- Paprika Jiro -- How to burden the girl -- The Women -- Q&A -- The dogs -- The straw husband.

"A housewife takes up bodybuilding and sees radical changes to her physique, which her workaholic husband fails to notice. A boy waits at a bus stop, mocking commuters struggling to keep their umbrellas open in a typhoon, until an old man shows him that they hold the secret to flying. A saleswoman in a clothing boutique waits endlessly on a customer who won't come out of the fitting room, and who may or may not be human. A newlywed notices that her spouse's features are beginning to slide around his face to match her own. In these eleven stories, the individuals who lift the curtains of their orderly homes and workplaces are confronted with the bizarre, the grotesque, the fantastic, the alien--and find a doorway to liberation. The English-language debut of one of Japan's most fearlessly inventive young writers" -- Back cover.

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