"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
