3 best books by Aki Shimazaki

Beyond the cool Murakami, writers like Yoshimoto o shimazaki They show that Japanese literature is also a matter of great narrators in charge of the transversal universality of all cultural events. Nothing more pretentious in its statement as effective in its reality. Because the best synthesis is the mix between cultures. The power to enjoy an imaginary transferred to paper from cultural statements far from ethnocentric inertia does much more for an "alliance of civilizations" than any other political roll.

In the case of Shimazaki, and since I have become ethnologically involved, it is not that we find ourselves before a transmitter of the Japanese as a setting or special plot motivation. In fact, she already writes in the adoptive French of her current Canada. But what is clear is that the idiosyncrasy cradled and blowjob also flows in the literature. And that's where you learn, understanding characters that evoke very distant motivations made ours thanks to the empathy that every reading brings us.

In short, that by reading Shimazaki we recover a minimalist but detailed point of existence once we have become meticulous observers of the soul. We become strange goldsmiths approaching the deepest instincts of their characters. All thanks to an almost atomic approach to his characters from the cellular of the emotions to the spiritual of the yearnings.

Top 3 Recommended Novels by Aki Shimazaki

Yamato's heart

Stories of impossible loves, hearts crossed like swords and unavoidable commitments to the most unfortunate destinies are still today a source from which to rescue that point of romanticism that in the Japanese case connects with many other extremely interesting aspects such as the concept of honor. The contrast of the location of History in a Japan reborn from its miseries after World War II offers us an even more convoluted scenario for some protagonists with whom we wish the world would finally turn the other way ...

Aoki Takashi is thirty years old and works for a prestigious Tokyo company that demands absolute time and dedication from its employees. There is hardly any room for love life, but Takashi falls violently and unexpectedly in love with Yuko, a receptionist with whom he shares French classes. Together they begin a beautiful relationship, full of daily rituals, which is threatened when the heir to the powerful Sumida bank notices her and officially asks her father for her hand.

Although he writes in French, Shimazaki belongs to the same lineage of great contemporary Japanese writers such as Haruki Murakami, Hiromi Kawakami and Yoko Ogawa, with that unique combination of sensuality and melancholy and that attention to the small and great changes in nature and the human soul. .

Yamato's heart

Hôzuki, Mitsuko's bookstore

The aroma of an old bookcase spreads from the filaments of light that filters between its volumes. And where the darkness between the shelves hangs over us with the shadows of its endless stories and its unapproachable wisdom, a bookseller like Mitsuko knows everything that can happen despite the apparent stillness ...

Mitsuko has a lance bookstore specializing in philosophical works. There he spends his days serenely with his mother and Tarô, his deaf-mute son. Every Friday night, however, she becomes a waitress at a high-end hostess bar. This job allows him to ensure his financial independence, and he appreciates his talks with the intellectuals who frequent the establishment.

One day, a distinguished woman walks into the store accompanied by her young daughter. Children are immediately attracted to each other. At the insistence of the lady and to please Tarô, despite the fact that he normally avoids making friends, Mitsuko agrees to see them again. This encounter could jeopardize your family's balance.
Aki Shimazaki here probes the nature of maternal love. With great subtlety, he questions the fiber and strength of the ties.

Hôzuki, Mitsuko's bookstore

The Nagasaki Quintet

A major atrocity ends with the worst work, with the ominous accomplishment of a patricide. This novel alternates its focus from the tragedy of the bombs to the internal mechanism that also blew up Yukiko's world ...

Throughout her life, Yukiko lived with a terrible secret: on the morning of August 9, 1945, before the bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, she killed her father. In a letter left to his daughter after death, he confesses to the crime and reveals that he has a stepbrother. It will soon be discovered that it is not only Yukiko who kept unspeakable secrets. Personal stories are intertwined with historical events: the Second World War in Japan, the conflicts with Korea, the earthquake of 1923. The generations follow one another while a lucid portrait of a society emerges, the Japanese, full of contradictions and linked to its traditions. .

In the background, nature, constant and discreet presence, delicate and elegant like the writing of Aki Shimazaki: the wind that caresses a cheek, the clouds in a suffocating summer sky, the fireflies flying over a stream, the blue grass of wasurenagusa , camellias in the Nagasaki forest. Short sentences of a refined simplicity, sometimes delicately poetic, other sensual, that face private and universal dramas and through which even the darkest story ends up being resolved with the lightness that Shimazaki is capable of infusing it.

The Nagasaki Quintet
rate post

1 comment on «3 best books by Aki Shimazaki»

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.