Mina's matchbox : a novel / Yoko Ogawa ; translated from the Japanese by Stephen Snyder.
"In the spring of 1972, twelve-year-old Tomoko leaves her mother behind in Tokyo and boards a train alone for Ashiya, a coastal town in Japan, to stay with her aunt's family. Tomoko's aunt is an enigma and an outlier in her working-class family, and her magnificent home-and handsome, foreign husband, the president of a soft drink company-are symbols of that status. The seventeen rooms are filled with German-made furnishings; there are sprawling gardens and even an old zoo where the family's pygmy hippopotamus resides. The family is just as beguiling as their mansion-Tomoko's dignified and devoted aunt, her German grandmother, and her dashing, charming uncle who confidently sits as the family's patriarch. At the center of the family is Tomoko's cousin Mina, a precocious, asthmatic girl of thirteen who draws Tomoko into an intoxicating world full of secret crushes and elaborate storytelling. In this elegant jewel box of a book, Yoko Ogawa invites us to witness a powerful and formative interlude in Tomoko's life, which she looks back on briefly from adulthood at the novel's end.? Behind the family's sophistication are complications that Tomoko struggles to understand-her uncle's mysterious absences, her German grandmother's experience of WWII, and her aunt's misery. Rich with the magic and mystery of youthful experience, Mina's Matchbox is an evocative snapshot of a moment frozen in time-and a striking depiction of a family on the edge of collapse"-- Provided by publisher.
Record details
- ISBN: 9780593316085
- ISBN: 0593316088
- ISBN: 9780593701935
- ISBN: 0593701933
- Physical Description: 280 pages : 22 cm
- Edition: First American edition.
- Publisher: New York : Pantheon Books, [2024]
- Copyright: ©2024
Content descriptions
- General Note:
- "Originally published in serialized form in Japan as Mina no Koshin by Yomiuri Shimbun in 2005. Originally published in paperback in Japan as Mina no Koshin by Chuokoron-Shinsha, Inc., Tokyo, in 2006."Translated from the Japanese.
- Language Note:
- Translated from the Japanese.
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Available copies
- 30 of 34 copies available at NC Cardinal. (Show)
- 1 of 1 copy available at Madison County Public Library.
Holds
- 1 current hold with 34 total copies.
Show Only Available Copies
| Location | Call Number / Copy Notes | Barcode | Shelving Location | Status | Due Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mars Hill Library | FIC OGA (Text) | 30229101352093 | Adult Fiction | Available | - |
