Description
When 21-year-old Chizu’s mother leaves for work in China, she moves into the ramshackle Tokyo home of her 71-year-old distant relative, Ginko—an eccentric refuge filled with cats, train noise, and the quiet friction of two lives learning to share space. As the seasons turn, Chizu drifts through part-time jobs and disappointing connections, her loneliness sharpened by youthful resentment and the small humiliations of everyday life. In Nanae Aoyama’s deadpan, detail-rich style, the novel becomes a microscopic portrait of heartbreak and self-reinvention, asking what it means to be alone without being lost. A love letter to Tokyo seen through a young woman’s eyes, this Akutagawa Prize–winning classic traces the slow, stubborn work of finding independence—and making solitude feel like choice rather than absence.
Available Editions
paperback
Hachette UK
Published May 9, 2024
126 pages
ISBN: 9781529427691
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Details
First Published
2007
Language
eng
Translation
From: jpn
Content Warnings
Content and trigger warnings for A Perfect Day to Be Alone by Nanae Aoyama.