Japanese Novellas – serie

Tense, subtly disturbing literary horror from a prize-winning Japanese writer

A young girl loses her mother, and her father blindly invites his secret lover into the family home to care for her. As she obsessively tries to curate a pristine life, this new interloper remains indifferent to the girl, who seems to record her every move - and she realises only too late all that she has failed to see.

With masterful narrative control, Nails and Eyes builds to a conclusion of disturbing power. Paired with two additional stories of unsettled minds and creeping tension, it introduces a daring new voice in Japanese literature.

Seventeen-year-old Haruo spends all his waking hours online, fixated on the endangered Japanese crested ibis, Nipponia Nippon. Alone in his Tokyo apartment, living off his parents' indulgence, he descends into a fantasy world where he alone shares a bond with the last of these noble birds, their lives caged in the national conservation centre.

Haruo's destiny becomes clear. He will free the birds-alive or dead-from an undeserving civilization. As Haruo's emotional state grows increasingly erratic, he searches the internet for weapons and prepares for the night of reckoning.