Tomoka Shibasaki – författare

Taro is divorced, unhappy in his job, and living in a half-empty building that is about to be torn down. One summer morning, he sees a fellow resident climbing over the wall to the next-door house. She says she is called Nishi, and invites herself inside. It emerges that Nishi's fascination with this pale blue house began in her student days twenty years before, and came from a book of photos called "Spring Garden" from decades earlier.As the summer draws to a close, Nishi, Taro and the new family that has moved into the old house come together and drift apart, leaving the reader with a sense of their whole life in just a few vivid snapshots.

This ground-breaking collection from Tomoka Shibasaki, author of the acclaimed novel Spring Garden, pushes the short story to a new level.In these stories of human connection in a contemporary, alienated world, people come together to share pieces of their lives, then part. We meet the women who share a house after the outbreak of war before going their separate ways once it is over; the man who lives in a succession of rooftop apartments; the diverging lives of two brothers who are raised as latch-key kids by factory workers; the old ramen restaurant that endures despite the demolition of all surrounding buildings; people who watch a new type of spaceship lift off from a pier that once belonged to an island resort; and more.These 34 tales from all over the planet have the compulsive power of news reports, narrated in a crisp yet allegorical style.