All The Lovers In The Night
Mieko Kawakami
Translated by Sam Bett
Translated by David Boyd
11 May 2023
9781509898299Synopsis
National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist 2022
‘Mieko Kawakami is a genius’ - Naoise Dolan, author of Exciting Times
From international literary sensation Mieko Kawakami comes All the Lovers in the Night, an extraordinary, deeply moving and insightful story set in contemporary Tokyo.
Fuyuko Irie is a freelance proofreader in her thirties. Living alone, and unable to form meaningful relationships, she has little contact with anyone other than Hijiri, someone she works with. When she sees her reflection, she’s confronted with a tired and spiritless woman who has failed to take control of her own life. Her one source of solace: light. Every Christmas Eve, Fuyuko heads out to catch a glimpse of the lights that fill the Tokyo night. But it is a chance encounter with a man named Mitsutsuka that awakens something new in her. And so her life begins to change.
As Fuyuko starts to see the world in a different light, painful memories from her past begin to resurface. Fuyuko needs to be loved, to be heard, and to be seen. But living in a small world of her own making, will she find the strength to bring down the walls that surround her? All the Lovers in the Night is acute and insightful, entertaining and captivating, pulsing and poetic, modern and shocking. It’s another unforgettable novel from Japan’s most exciting writer.
Translated from the Japanese by Sam Bett and David Boyd.
Kawakami’s novel is uncompromisingly candid in its appraisal of the harm women inflict on one another, while never losing sight of the overarching structures that lead them to do so in the first place. Compact and supple, it’s a strikingly intelligent feat.The New York Times Book Review
Her most accomplished novel yet . . . A contemporary Japanese master continues her meteoric rise into our literary firmamentHamilton Cain, Oprah Daily (A Most Anticipated Book of 2022)
[An] engrossing, fine-boned new novel, deftly translated from Japanese by Sam Bett and David Boyd . . . with this consummate novel, Kawakami’s star continues to rise, pulsing against a night that’s anything but holyHamilton Cain, The Washington Post
