Territory of light

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Territory of light

Title:

Territory of light

Author:

Tsushima, Yūko, author.

Harcourt, Geraldine, translator.

Summary:

A young woman, left by her husband, starts a new life in a Tokyo apartment. Over the course of a year, as she struggles to bring up her two-year-old daughter alone, her new home is filled with light streaming through the windows, so bright she has to squint, but she finds herself plummeting deeper into darkness, becoming unstable, untethered. With the turning of the seasons, she must confront what she has lost and what she will become.

General Note:

"Originally published in Japan in 1979 by Kodansha Ltd., Japan, as Hikari no Ryoubun. English translation rights arranged with the Estate of Yuko Tsushima through Japan UNI Agency, Inc., Tokyo. English translation originally published in 2018 by Penguin Books Ltd., Great Britain."

Edition:

First American edition.

Contents:

Territory of light -- The water's edge -- Sunday in the trees -- A dream of birds -- The sound of a voice -- The magic words -- The dunes -- Red lights -- The body -- The earth's surface -- Flames -- Corpuscules of light.

Physical Description:

183 pages ; 20 cm

Genre:

Domestic fiction.

Subject Term:

Single mothers -- Fiction.

Loss (Psychology) -- Fiction.

Abandoned wives -- Fiction.

Geographic Term:

Tokyo (Japan) -- Fiction.

Author(s):

Harcourt, Geraldine,

Publisher:

Farrar, Straus and Giroux,

Publication Date:

2019

2018

ISBN:

9780374273217

Publication Information:

New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019.

Call Number:

TSUSHIM

Holds: Copies:

Available:*

Item Barcode	Collection	Call Number	Status	Item Holds
33607003390591	Adult Fiction	TSUSHIM	Searching... Unknown	Searching... Unavailable

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Summary

From one of the most significant contemporary Japanese writers, a haunting, dazzling novel of loss and rebirth

"Yuko Tsushima is one of the most important Japanese writers of her generation." --Foumiko Kometani, The New York Times

I was puzzled by how I had changed. But I could no longer go back . . .

It is spring. A young woman, left by her husband, starts a new life in a Tokyo apartment. Territory of Light follows her over the course of a year, as she struggles to bring up her two-year-old daughter alone. Her new home is filled with light streaming through the windows, so bright she has to squint, but she finds herself plummeting deeper into darkness, becoming unstable, untethered. As the months come and go and the seasons turn, she must confront what she has lost and what she will become.

At once tender and lacerating, luminous and unsettling, Yuko Tsushima's Territory of Light is a novel of abandonment, desire, and transformation. It was originally published in twelve parts in the Japanese literary monthly Gunzo , between 1978 and 1979, each chapter marking the months in real time. It won the inaugural Noma Literary Prize.

Author Notes

First published while a student, Tsushima was immediately well received and continues to write novels and short stories prolifically. Her works are characterized by themes of childhood innocence (from memories of her relationship with her retarded brother) and of the emotional barrenness of family life. Tsushima is the daughter of Dazai Osamu. (Bowker Author Biography)

Reviews (1)

Publisher's Weekly Review

A young woman confronts life as a single mother in this graceful, eye-opening novel from Tsushima (1937-2016), one of the most influential feminists in Japanese literature. An unnamed radio archivist rents a light-filled Tokyo apartment with her unnamed two-year-old daughter after separating from her husband, Fujino, a deadbeat film student. Over the course of a year, the mother readjusts her routines, tentatively attempts to kindle a romance with one of her husband's tutoring students, and, most challenging of all, transitions to single parenthood. She experiences nightmares about her daughter dying, then guilt that some part of her wishes it were so; she longs to have her "old life back," yet does everything she can to make her daughter feel "keenly alive." "Why were children the only ones who ever got to melt down?" she wonders. As the separation from her husband becomes a divorce, the mother begins to find her footing with the assistance of a friend who offers to babysit. But even once the mother has embarked on a spur-of-the-moment solo trip to the seaside, she can't forget her daughter and finds "the physical distance between us allowed me a pillowy kind of peace." Equal parts brutal and tender, Tsushima's portrait of the strains and joys of motherhood is captivating. (Feb.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.