The New York Daily News has called Asleep "enchanting,
surreal...Yoshimoto brings readers to another powerful, atmospheric
place." Demonstrating again the artful simplicity and depth of her
vision, Banana Yoshimoto reestablishes her place as a writer of
international stature in a book that may be her most delightful since
Kitchen.
In Asleep, Yoshimoto spins the stories of three young women bewitched
into a spiritual sleep. One, mourning for a lost lover, finds herself
sleepwalking at night. Another, who has embarked on a relationship with
a man whose wife is in a coma, finds herself suddenly unable to stay
awake. A third finds her sleep haunted by a woman against whom she was
once pitted in a love triangle.
Sly and mystical as a ghost story, with a touch of Kafkaesque
surrealism, Asleep is an enchanting book from one of the best writers
in contemporary international fiction.