The Bear and the Paving Stone - (Japanese Novellas) by Toshiyuki Horie (Paperback)

About the Book

"A Japanese man, far from home, travels the countryside of Normandy with a friend--talking about war, literature, and everything in between. As his ideas of his life become more entangled with his personal writing, the pangs of his past and his half-forgotten memories overlap and threaten his peace. Owing a debt to French writers from La Fontaine to Proust, the three fable-like tales in The Bear and the Paving Stone are stories of loss, memory and a longing to belong"--

Book Synopsis

A haunting world of dreams and memories where everyone ends up where they began - whether they want to or not

Winner of the prestigious Akutagawa Prize, this collection of 3 tales of memory in wartime France is perfect for fans of Helen Oyeyemi and Banana Yoshimoto

Owing a debt to French writers from La Fontaine to Proust, the 3 fable-like tales in this volume illuminate stories of loss, memory, and a longing to belong.

There was "something about me" which made him talk about things he didn't need to talk about, made him expose his wounds. That surely made me more dangerous than a stranger who was totally indifferent.

Visiting a friend in the Normandy countryside, a man is drawn into conversations that plunge him into the complexities of historical chance, religious identity, and his own past. Sharing memories and looking at old photographs, the pair circle around the area's disturbing wartime history.

A work of great depth and atmosphere, "The Bear and the Paving Stone" is here accompanied by 2 equally striking stories in which:

• a walk along the seashore, upon the anniversary of a death, becomes a reverie on building sandcastles;
• and an innocent break-in at the ruins of an archbishop's residence takes a turn towards disaster.

These 3 dream-like stories develop like haunting fables, full of shadows and echoes of French literature, and all revolve around the unavoidable connections of our past. Winner of Japan's most prestigious literary award, the Akutagawa Prize, The Bear and the Paving Stone is a book of intricate, gentle beauty.

Review Quotes

"Horie weaves fables out of everyday existence in these three captivating tales of relationships and lives revisited . . . Across these ruminative stories, Horie suddenly drops in moments of piercing wisdom and revelation, revealing that, for better or worse, there is no escape from one's memory. -- Publishers Weekly

"A gentle, stirring novella of history and memory that simmers with raw emotional ferocity. . . Horie uses descriptive imagery in a distanced narrative style. His characters maintain an inner strength and Zen-like independence that wavers under the emotional weight of shared memories, which merge in unexpected ways to convey a yearning for deeper connections. The Bear and the Paving Stone adds to the bold collection of contemporary Japanese literature published by Pushkin Press." -- Shelf Awareness

"It is a rather beautiful, very funny, often bitter or sadly gentle book that will entice and satisfy while leaving one thirsting for more." -- Bookanista

"Whimsical stories, celebrating, language, friendship and life." -- Japan Times

About the Author

Toshiyuki Horie (born 1964) is a scholar of French literature and a professor at Waseda University. He has won many literary prizes, including the Mishima Yukio Prize, Akutagawa Prize (for The Bear and the Paving Stone), the Kawabata Yasunari Prize, the Tanizaki Jun'ichiro Prize and the Yomiuri Prize for Literature (twice).

Geraint Howells is a translator from Japanese into English.