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Asleep (novel)
Encyclopedia
Asleep （白河夜船) is a novel
written by Japan
ese author
Banana Yoshimoto
(吉本ばなな）in 1989
and translated into English
in 2000
(book was released in 2001
) by Michael Emmerich.
The novel contains three stories. All three center around sleep, dreams, death, and at least two women who share the love of a single man.
Night & Night's Travelers is about Shibami, a 22-year-old girl who shared a close relationship with both her brother and cousin. Her brother, Yoshihiro, who is charismatic and romantic, falls for an American woman named Sarah and moves to Boston. Meanwhile, her cousin, Mari, realises that she has always been in love with Yoshiro. When Yoshiro returns from America, he and Mari become lovers until his sudden death. The story is about the relationship between Mari and narrator, and about how the death of a loved one, and the secrets they have left behind, can affect the people who were closest to them.
Love Songs is about a young woman named Fumi who is battling an addiction with alcohol. She hears strange music at night and remembers the face of Haru, a woman she lived with when they were both fighting over the affections of the same man. She slowly realizes that she loved this woman, and when she and her boyfriend realize that she has died, they seek a way to contact her from beyond the grave.
Asleep concerns Terako, a young woman who begins a relationship with a man whose wife is in a coma. After her best friend, Shiori, a kind of "sleep prostitute", commits suicide, the young woman is left feeling adrift in her own life... until she meets the spirit of her boyfriend's wife.
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
written by Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
Banana Yoshimoto
Banana Yoshimoto
is the pen name of Mahoko Yoshimoto , a Japanese contemporary writer. She writes her name in hiragana.-Biography:Yoshimoto, daughter of Takaaki Yoshimoto, was born in Tokyo on July 24, 1964...
(吉本ばなな）in 1989
1989 in literature
The year 1989 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* February 24 - Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini places a US$3 million bounty for the death of The Satanic Verses author Salman Rushdie.-Literature:...
and translated into English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
in 2000
2000 in literature
The year 2000 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* February 13 - Final original Peanuts comic strip is published...
(book was released in 2001
2001 in literature
The year 2001 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* The film version of J. R. R. Tolkien's classic book, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, is released to movie theaters...
) by Michael Emmerich.
The novel contains three stories. All three center around sleep, dreams, death, and at least two women who share the love of a single man.
Night & Night's Travelers is about Shibami, a 22-year-old girl who shared a close relationship with both her brother and cousin. Her brother, Yoshihiro, who is charismatic and romantic, falls for an American woman named Sarah and moves to Boston. Meanwhile, her cousin, Mari, realises that she has always been in love with Yoshiro. When Yoshiro returns from America, he and Mari become lovers until his sudden death. The story is about the relationship between Mari and narrator, and about how the death of a loved one, and the secrets they have left behind, can affect the people who were closest to them.
Love Songs is about a young woman named Fumi who is battling an addiction with alcohol. She hears strange music at night and remembers the face of Haru, a woman she lived with when they were both fighting over the affections of the same man. She slowly realizes that she loved this woman, and when she and her boyfriend realize that she has died, they seek a way to contact her from beyond the grave.
Asleep concerns Terako, a young woman who begins a relationship with a man whose wife is in a coma. After her best friend, Shiori, a kind of "sleep prostitute", commits suicide, the young woman is left feeling adrift in her own life... until she meets the spirit of her boyfriend's wife.
Publication details
Asleep (English edition) by Banana Yoshimoto- Hardcover - ISBN 0-8021-1669-8 published by Grove PressGrove PressGrove Press is an American publishing imprint that was founded in 1951. Imprints include: Black Cat, Evergreen, Venus Library, Zebra. Barney Rosset purchased the company in 1951 and turned it into an alternative book press in the United States. The Atlantic Monthly Press, under the aegis of its...
- Paperback - ISBN 0-8021-3820-9, published by Grove Press