Amrita - by Banana Yoshimoto (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Banana Yoshimoto's warm, witty, and heartfelt depictions of the lives of young Japanese have earned her international acclaim and best-seller status, as well as a place among the best of contemporary Japanese literature. In Amrita, now in Grove Press paperback, when a celebrated actress dies under shocking circumstances, she leaves behind an older sister, Sakumi, who suffers from memory loss in the wake of an accident. Struggling to remember whom she loves and what she lost, Sakumi embarks on a unique emotional journey, accompanied by her dead sister's lover and her clairvoyant kid brother. In Amrita, Yoshimoto proves, once again, her prowess as an imaginative yet grounded storyteller as she takes Sakumi--and readers--on a compelling expedition through grief, dreams, and shadows, to a place of transformation and discovery.

"Yoshimoto's most fully realized work to date. . . . Her firm grasp of her characters, her surefooted prose and her wide-eyed exploration of everything from American pop culture to the Japanese language make this one of the most satisfying books of the summer." --Time Out New York

Review Quotes

"Banana Yoshimoto is a master storyteller . . . The sensuality is subtle, masked, and extraordinarily powerful. The language is deceptively simple."--Chicago Tribune

"Entering Banana Yoshimoto's fictional world is a little like living as an expatriate in Tokyo--everyday things are disconcertingly different. The exotic lurks around every corner . . . What sets Yoshimoto apart, though, is her blunt candor . . . Amrita is difficult to forget."--San Francisco Chronicle

"Yoshimoto's most fully realized work to date . . . Her firm grasp of her characters, her surefooted prose and her wide-eyed exploration of everything from American pop culture to the Japanese language make this one of the most satisfying books of the summer."--Time Out New York

"Ms. Yoshimoto has an effortless ability to penetrate her characters' hearts."--New York Times Book Review

"Yoshimoto shouldn't be shy about basking in her celebrity. Her achievements are already legend."--Boston Globe

"Yoshimoto knows the remedial potential of a good, old-fashioned narrative . . . Her characters are immersed in a youth culture that owes more than a little to our notoriously shallow, decadent fin de siècle. They sleep around, eat street ramen, and listen with pleasure to Nirvana, but their lives are also marred by old-fashioned timeless tragedy. They lose their jobs and marry unsuccessfully; the people they love die before their time . . .Yoshimoto has never been afraid of trauma."--The Nation

"This Kundera-esque novel (from the hugely popular Japanese author of Kitchen) is more about the grinding unabatement of everyday life than the shocks that perforate it, and all of its spirits are, mercifully, blithe."--Entertainment Weekly

"In the popular young author's latest novel, an oddly winsome blend of personal psychology and the paranormal overlay the story of a young woman's fight to reclaim herself after twin tragedies . . . The earnest, peripatetic confusion of Sakumi's narrative whisks the reader from one peak moment to another . . . Endearing . . . Will surely fit in any collection where contemporary fiction circulates well."--Library Journal

"All of Yoshimoto's trademark themes and edgy lyricism are at work in this novel, her most ambitious work to date . . . and many scenes crackle with her hot-wired magic . . . Sakumi, the narrator, is enchantingly muddled, sincere, and full of love for her irregular family . . . [Yoshimoto] spins a mesmerizing and haunting tale."--Booklist

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