The Thorn Puller

Name: The Thorn Puller
Brand: Unknown
SKU: 9781737625308
Price: 39.99 NZD
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By Hiromi Ito

Summary

The Thorn Puller by Hiromi Ito is a poignant blend of memoir and fiction, exploring the intertwining lives of a multicultural Japanese family. The story delves into themes of caregiving, cultural identity, and the complexities of family relationships. Through lyrical prose, it captures the emotional landscapes of individuals navigating life's challenges amidst cultural and personal divides.
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Format: Paperback / softback

$39⁹⁹

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The Thorn Puller

$39⁹⁹

Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

You might enjoy this book if you're drawn to powerful narratives intertwining personal experience and cultural exploration. The narrative reflects on caregiving and examines how deeply family and heritage shape one's life. Its introspective style may appeal to you if you appreciate stories rich in emotional depth and cultural insight.

The Thorn Puller

Introducing Hiromi Ito, an award-winning Japanese author who has been compared to Haruki Murakami and Yoko Tawada.

Stone Bridge Press

Description

Winner of the Sakutaro Hagiwara Prize and the Murasaki Shikibu Prize

Introducing Hiromi Ito, an award-winning Japanese author who has been compared to Haruki Murakami and Yoko Tawada.

The first novel to appear in English by award-winning author Hiromi Ito explores the absurdities, complexities, and challenges experienced by a woman caring for her two families: her husband and daughters in California and her aging parents in Japan. As the narrator shuttles back and forth between these two starkly different cultures, she creates a powerful and entertaining narrative about what it means to live and die in a globalized society.

Ito has been described as a 'shaman of poetry' because of her skill in allowing the voices of others to flow through her. Here she enriches her semi-autobiographical novel by channeling myriad voices drawn from Japanese folklore, poetry, literature, and pop culture. The result is a generic chimera—part poetry, part prose, part epic—a unique, transnational, polyvocal mode of storytelling. One throughline is a series of memories associated with the Buddhist bodhisattva Jizo, who helps to remove the 'thorns' of human suffering.

"Overflowing and contradictory, worn down with fatigue, yet brimming with energy, The Thorn Puller combines a confessional story of a woman dealing with family commitments in two countries with vibrant excursions into Japanese folklore and history." - Richard Medhurst, Nippon.com

"With ruthless honesty and wicked humor, Ito exposes the frustration and inconvenience of being a caregiver, juxtaposing it with the sorrow of watching a loved one deteriorate." - Foreword Reviews, starred review

"Poet Ito makes her English-language fiction debut with a lyrical account of a woman caught between two cultures and her family's demands...Fans of Japanese literature will enjoy this impressionistic project." - Publishers Weekly

"Ito's chameleonic prose confronts mortality, cultural conflicts, religious comforts, and waning relationships, embellished with all manner of welcoming, unfiltered, surprisingly humorous honesty about the universally quotidian, from pimple-popping to good sex." - Terry Hong, Booklist

Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?

The Thorn Puller is lauded for its rich exploration of universal themes like love, death, and suffering, through a poetic and humourous lens. Reviewers praise its seamless blend of Japanese folklore with the contemporary struggles of familial and cultural obligations. With engaging and unique prose, it reveals the transcendent power of language while addressing the challenges of caregiving and cultural identity. The book's translation is commended for capturing the intricate rhythms and tones of the original text, adding to its immersive and impactful narrative.

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781737625308

Publisher: Stone Bridge Press

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 26 January 2023

Country: United States

Imprint: Stone Bridge Press

Illustration: Illustrations

Contributors:

Translated by Jeffrey Angles

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Width: 139.0mm

Height: 203.0mm

Weight: 0g

Pages: 300

Collections

Fiction General Fiction Hiromi Ito Literary Fiction

About the Author

Hiromi Itocame to national attention in Japan in the 1980s for her groundbreaking poetry about pregnancy, childbirth, and female sexuality. After relocating to the U.S. in the 1990s, she began to write about the immigrant experience and biculturalism. In recent years, she has focused on the ways that dying and death shape human experience. English translations include Killing Kanoko and Wild Grass on the Riverbank.

Jeffrey Angles is a writer and professor of Japanese at Western Michigan University. He is the first non-native poet writing in Japanese to win the Yomiuri Prize for Literature, a highly coveted prize for poetry. His translation of the modernist classic The Book of the Dead by Shinobu Orikuchi won both the Miyoshi Award and the Scaglione Prize for translation.