Amrita by Banana Yoshimoto

Entering Banana Yoshimoto’s fictional world is a little like living as an expatriate in Tokyo—everyday things are disconcertingly different. The exotic lurks around every corner. . . . Amrita is difficult to forget.” —San Francisco Chronicle

Banana Yoshimoto’s warm, witty, and heartfelt depictions of the lives of young Japanese have earned her international acclaim and best-seller status, as well as a place among the best of contemporary Japanese literature. In Amrita, now in Grove Press paperback, when a celebrated actress dies under shocking circumstances, she leaves behind an older sister, Sakumi, who suffers from memory loss in the wake of an accident. Struggling to remember whom she loves and what she lost, Sakumi embarks on a unique emotional journey, accompanied by her dead sister’s lover and her clairvoyant kid brother. In Amrita, Yoshimoto proves, once again, her prowess as an imaginative yet grounded storyteller as she takes Sakumi—and readers—on a compelling expedition through grief, dreams, and shadows, to a place of transformation and discovery.

“Yoshimoto’s most fully realized work to date. . . . Her firm grasp of her characters, her surefooted prose and her wide-eyed exploration of everything from American pop culture to the Japanese language make this one of the most satisfying books of the summer.” —Time Out New York