Amrita - Hardcover

Banana Yoshimoto

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 080211590X ISBN 13: 9780802115904

Publisher: Grove Press, 1997

Synopsis

A celebrated actress dies under mysterious and shocking circumstances, leaving behind an unconventional extended family that includes her novelist fiance+a7, a young brother with mystical powers, and a younger sister, the narrator of the story. 50,000 first printing. $75,000 ad/promo.

About this title

Review:

"Blood ties seemed unrelated to how we were living," Sakumi, the young narrator of Amrita, begins portentously. The "we" of the family comprises a strange blend--Sakumi's mother, twice married (widowed and divorced); a telepathic younger brother; a cousin; and her mother's childhood friend. Grief over the tragic death of Mayu, Sakumi's flamboyant younger sister, binds them together. But grief is not the only obstacle to happiness and wholeness for Sakumi, who loses her memory in a fall. Grief shocked into awareness by memories retrieved--such is the thread that allows Sakumi to piece together her own identity and press toward acceptance of her sister's death.

Banana Yoshimoto's first novel, Kitchen (1991), traversed the territory of love and loss. Its fabulous success in Japan and the U.S. had to do with her distinct sensibility, a contemporary voice arising from a tradition-conscious culture. Amrita also ventures through the minefield of familial loss, but with a style less driven by the bizarre interface of tradition and pop culture.

About the Author:

Banana Yoshimoto was born in 1964. She is the author of Kitchen, N.P., Lizard, Amrita, Asleep and Goodbye Tsugumi. Her writing has won numerous prizes around the world.

About this edition

• Publisher: Grove Press
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 080211590X
• ISBN 13: 9780802115904
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 366