Aoko Matsuda – författare

FEMINIST TALES FROM JAPAN BY THE ACCLAIMED AUTHOR OF WHERE THE WILD LADIES AREPiercing, inventive, and darkly humorous, the fifty-two stories in Aoko Matsuda’s The Woman Dies explore the persistent and pervasive sexism faced by women in modern-day Japan.The normalization of violence against women on screen and in the media is confronted in the story ‘The Woman Dies’, while others invest inanimate objects with their own perspectives, examine the aesthetics of technology, and use clever wordplay to riff off the absurdity of contemporary life. Masterfully translated by Polly Barton, the translator of Asako Yuzuki’s Butter, The Woman Dies is more than a simple thrill ride. Blending humour, surrealism, and sharp social critique, it’s a vast, multifaceted theme park of ideas by one of Japan’s most exciting writers.Praise for Where the Wild Ladies Are, a Time magazine Best Book of 2022“Delightfully uncanny… Matsuda’s retellings are feminist with a vengeance.” —New York Times Book Review “Funny, beautiful, surreal and relatable, this is a phenomenal book.”—The Guardian “Softly electrifying.” —The Atlantic“Delightful, sharp, poignant.”—Literary Hub

Witty, inventive, and profound, Where the Wild Ladies Are is a contemporary feminist retelling of traditional ghost stories by one of Japan''s most exciting writers.In a company run by the mysterious Mr Tei, strange things are afoot – incense sticks lead to a surprise encounter; a young man reflects on his mother''s death; a foxlike woman finally finds her true calling. As female ghosts appear in unexpected guises, their gently humorous encounters with unsuspecting humans lead to deeper questions about emancipation and recent changes in Japanese women''s lives.

An unnamed narrator visits her friend, the girl who is getting married, in her apartment on the fifth floor of an anonymous building. With each flight of steps, the narrator recalls different memories of the time they have spent together their time in high school, their first jobs, a chance encounter on the train. However, just as the building's corridor twists and turn toward the flat, we realise that the story, too, is shifting under our feet. As details go missing and memories are contradicted, we are left wondering whose eyes we re looking through.