Tiny Speck of Black and Then Nothing

Emily Midorikawa is the author of Out of the Shadows: Six Visionary Victorian Women in Search of a Public Voice, and the coauthor of A Secret Sisterhood: The Literary Friendships of Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, George Eliot, and Virginia Woolf (written with Emma Claire Sweeney).Emily is a winner of the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize. Her journalism has appeared in publications including the Paris Review, TIME, The Times (of London) and the Washington Post. She teaches on the writing programme at New York University London.

A Tiny Speck of Black and then Nothing is the exquisitely-written and utterly compelling tale of a young English teacher abroad in Japan, and her struggle to find answers when her friend, a Western nightclub hostess, disappears. Set partly in the exhilarating neon-lit world of Osaka's clubs and bars, Midorikawa's novel captures the intoxication of new friendship, as well as the frightening unknowability of those we are closest to - including the protagonist's Japanese mother, who vanished when she was a child. Interwoven with folklore and insights into contemporary Japan, A Tiny Speck of Black and then Nothing is a gripping and twisty literary thriller, with a cast of fascinating, enigmatic characters, and great emotional resonance and depth.