Author(s): Andrew Miller

Fiction

1940. Tokyo. Japan is at war with China, and Yuji Takano is clinging to the life he has made for himself as a young poet the company of his friends, the monthly meetings of the French Club at Monsieur Feneon's house, the days of writing and contemplation made possible by an allowance from his father, a professor at Tokyo's elite Imperial university. . . But the world is closing in on Yuji. His father is disgraced, the allowance is scrapped, and the threat of conscription is coming ever closer. And then there is Monsieur Feneon's nineteen-year-old daughter Alissa, a girl with her own very definite ideas of what she wants, and whose fate becomes inextricably bound up with Yuji's. In hauntingly evocative prose, Andrew Miller tells a timeless story about growing up and growing free of self-delusions, about following the heart and making the right choices in life. Vividly conveying its setting, he also draws a fascinating portrait of a bygone Tokyo and of Japan at a critical juncture in its history. Review: 'Miller's delicate prose most closely recalls the tone of emotional restraint in Kazuo Ishiguro's early novels ... Crisply defined characters offer a foil to Yuji's progressive ruminations, which Miller deftly coheres into a typically bittersweet resolution.' -- James Urquhart, Independent on Sunday 'Miller's Japanese characters are densely believable, and his recreation of their world is a real achievement' -- Christopher Tayler, Guardian 'The frank simplicity of Miller's prose, and his search for truth in the reality of the quotidian feels (to this Western reader) convincingly Japanese. Miller places his words and plot developments carefully, like the smooth grey pebbles of a Zen garden, with all but the most essential adjectives weathered away. There are moments of beauty, truth and irony.' -- Helen Brown, Daily Telegraph 'Detail by delicate detail Miller conjures Yuji's dim, mysterious world of gradual dissolution." -- Natalie Sandison, The Times 20080913 First published 2008.