The Rainbow

A powerful, poignant novel about three half-sisters in post-war Japan, from the Nobel Prize-winning author of Snow Country.

With the Second World War only a few years in the past, and Japan still reeling from its effects, two half-sisters—born to the same father but different mothers—struggle to make sense of the new world in which they are coming of age.

Asako, the younger, has become obsessed with locating a third sibling, while also experiencing love for the first time. Meanwhile, Momoko, their father's first child—haunted by the loss of her kamikaze boyfriend and their final, disturbing days together—seeks comfort in a series of unhealthy romances.

Both sisters find themselves unable to outrun the legacies of their late mothers. The Rainbow is a thoughtful, probing novel about the enduring traumas of war, the unbreakable bonds of family, and the inescapability of the past. It is a searing, melancholy work from one of Japan's greatest writers.