Description
Twenty-year-old Taguchi Hiro has spent the last two years of his life living as a hikikomori-a shut-in who never leaves his room and has no human interaction-in his parents' home in Tokyo. As Hiro tentatively decides to reenter the world, he spends his days observing life around him from a park bench. Gradually he makes friends with Ohara Tetsu, a middle-aged salaryman who has lost his job but can't bring himself to tell his wife, and shows up every day in a suit and tie to pass the time on a nearby bench. As Hiro and Tetsu cautiously open up to each other, they discover in their sadness a common bond. Regrets and disappointments, as well as hopes and dreams, come to the surface until both find the strength to somehow give a new start to their lives. This beautiful novel is moving, unforgettable, and full of surprises. The reader turns the last page feeling that a small triumph has occurred.
Author: Milena Michiko Flasar
Publisher: New Vessel Press
Published: 09/09/2014
Pages: 133
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.30lbs
Size: 7.90h x 5.20w x 0.40d
ISBN13: 9781939931146
ISBN10: 1939931142
BISAC Categories:
- Fiction | Literary
- Fiction | Coming of Age
About the Author
Milena Michiko Flasar was born in 1980, the daughter of a Japanese mother and an Austrian father. She lives in Vienna and has written three novels, including I Called Him Necktie, which won the 2012 Austrian Alpha Literature Prize.