The Nakano Thrift Shop by Hiromi Kawakami - 2005. - translated from the Japanese by Allison Markin Powell - 2016

The Nakano Thrift Shop by Hiromi Kawakami- 2005.  - translated from the Japanese by Allison Markin  Powell - 2016

 Website of The Japanese Literature Challenge 

This is my 14th year as a participant in The Japanese Literature Challenge hosted by Docle Belleza.  Through this I discovered hithertofore unknown to me writers whom I have added to my read all I can lists.  

The requirements of The Challenge, explained in The Website, are simple. Read one book written by a Japanese author and post a link to your comments on the Website.  The Japanese Literature Challenge opened up a fantastic Multi-Dimensional area of literature to me.  You can also meet others who share your interests and perhaps expand the reach of your website.

I have previously read and posted upon two novels by Hiromi Kawakami, Prade and Strange Weather in Tokyo.

In July of 2021  I read Hiromi Kawakami’s delightful novel Strange Weather in Tokyo.   Strange Weather in Tokyo centers on the very slowly developing relationship between a single woman in her late thirties,Tsukiko, and one of her former high school teachers, Sensei,at least thirty years her senior. They run into each other in a bar by accident.  They have frequent unarranged meet ups at the bar, which serves great food along with Saki and beer. She assumes he is a widower.

As time passes a shared love of food, proximity and their history brings them into a more intimate relationship.

This is a very subtly developed story line.  Each character keeps things in reserve.  Both are deeply lonely.

The Nakano Thrift shop is not an expensive antique shop, more a place for curios.  Each of the twelve chapters is named after an item sold in the store, how it got there and who buys the item. 

The shop is owned by Mr. Nakano.  The narrative thread on the relationship between Hitomi and Takeo, the  thrift shop’s pickup and delivery driver and buyer.  Hiromi, the narrator of the novel feels an attraction for Takeo but as in Strange Weather in Tokyo it is very subdued and only partially returned.

Mr. Nakano often has lovers.  Hiromi and Takeo share an interest in spying on him, partially for his sister.  She has her own live in boyfriend.  Hiromi and Takeo begin to see each other outside the store.  He tells her he is not especially into sex.

There are lots of food references, facts about the antique business in Japan as well as interesting side characters.

The characters are very interesting.  They have issues forming intimate bonds.

Hiromi Kawakami is one of Japan’s most acclaimed and successful authors. Winner of numerous prizes for her fiction, including the Akutagawa, Ito Sei, Women Writers (Joryu Bungako Sho), and Izumi Kyoka prizes, she is the author of The Nakano Thrift Shop, a Wall Street Journal Best New Fiction pick, Strange Weather in Tokyo, Manazuru, among

others. Her short fiction has appeared in The Paris Review and Granta. She lives in Japan.. from Europa Publishing