Thursday September 29th – 7.00pm
Jayne Joso joins us for a Kimono Book Party!
Hurray! We’re thrilled to welcome one of our favourite authors, Jayne Joso back to the Big Green Bookshop, to celebrate the publication of her new novel “My Falling Down House”.
Having lost his job and his home, Takeo Tanaka, a young Japanese man, takes refuge in a dilapidated wood and paper house. He sets himself projects in an attempt to hold on to his sanity and as recompense for trespassing and dwelling in a house for which he makes no payment. But with only a cat and a cello for company, his ability to distinguish between real and imagined events is soon deeply challenged.
His fears and failing health keep him inside the house through four testing seasons, and he is driven to the edge of insanity as he pushes his creative abilities to keep himself occupied and retain his self-respect.
When the shapeshifter (yokai) arrives, and begins to menace him, he is again made to doubt his sanity, and then also his sight, and his hearing. Questioning his previous life brings him to a point of crisis and he renegotiates his feelings towards a crippling modern world and all that this demands. As the seasons move on, he finds himself more and more deeply drawn into a relationship with nature and simple ways of living.
Jayne received the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation Award for her new novel, given to a work of fiction or non-fiction which helps to interpret modern Japan to the English-speaking world.
This is Jayne’s third novel. Her first, “Soothing Music for Stray Cats” explores the lives of disaffected city dwellers, and was heralded as ‘the debut of a distinctive voice in contemporary British Fiction’ by social historian Joe Moran; with the Times Literary Supplement projecting that it ‘may emerge as one of the great, eccentric London novels’.
Her second novel, “Perfect Architect”, draws on Joso’s interest in architectural and psychological space. Accompanied by illustrations by Japanese artist, Hiroki Godengi, Perfect Architect was given full-page discussion in the international magazine: ICON
To make things even more fun, it’s going to be a Japanese themed evening.
Come in your kimono, as your inner ninja, your shapeshifting alter-ego, or just as you are!
This is a FREE event, but please let us know if you’d like to come along (enquiries@biggreenbookshop.com or phone 020 8881 6767)
Refreshments will be available.
No comments:
Post a Comment