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All the Lovers in the Night
- Author
- Mieko Kawakami
- Narrator
- Mirai Booth-Ong
- Publisher
- Blackstone Publishing
- Publish Date
- 2 July 2022
- Run Time
- 7 hours 44 minutes
- Format
- Audiobook
What to expect
The bestselling author of Breasts and Eggs, Mieko Kawakami invites listeners back into her immediately recognizable fictional world with this new, extraordinary novel and demonstrates yet again why she is one of today’s most uncategorizable, insightful, and talented novelists.
Fuyuko Irie is a freelance copyeditor in her mid-thirties. Working and living alone in a city where it is not easy to form new relationships, she has little regular contact with anyone other than her editor, Hijiri, a woman of the same age but with a very different disposition. When Fuyoku stops one day on a Tokyo street and notices her reflection in a storefront window, what she sees is a drab, awkward, and spiritless woman who has lacked the strength to change her life—and decides to do something about it.
As the long overdue change occurs, however, painful episodes from Fuyuko’s past surface and her behavior slips further and further beyond the pale.
All the Lovers in the Night is acute and insightful, entertaining and engaging; it will make listeners laugh, and it will make them cry, but it will also remind them, as only the best books do, that sometimes the pain is worth it.
Critics Review
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“[An] atmospheric, subtly beautiful novel.”
Time
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“Brilliant prose underscores the pain and ecstasy of thriving in the margins.”
Boston Globe
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“[An] extraordinary exploration of relationships, work, and the intimate connections that (may) make it all worthwhile.”
Ms. Magazine
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“[An] appraisal of the harm women inflict on one another, while never losing sight of the overarching structures that lead them to do so in the first place.”
New York Times Book Review
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“Beautifully translated by Sam Bett and David Boyd, [Kawakami’s] keen insight focuses not only on love and loneliness but also on work and personal fulfillment, office relationships and friendships, and standards of beauty and gendered expectations.”
Japan Times
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“By highlighting the inner lives of outsiders, Kawakami’s work takes aim at the social structures of class and gender.”
Financial Times (London)
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“In contrast to the many suffocating (western) conventions of romantic storytelling, it is refreshing to encounter a book of such irresistible sweet melancholy.”
Irish Times (Dublin)
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“[A] brilliantly rendered portal into young women’s lives.”
Booklist (starred review)
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“The author dazzles with her exploration of emotions…It’s a winner.”
Publishers Weekly (starred review)
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“A rich and notable examination of the varied ways women choose to live their lives and the gains and losses that come with the choices they’ve made.”
Kirkus Review (starred review)
User Reviews
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Details
- Author
- Mieko Kawakami
- Narrator
- Mirai Booth-Ong
- Duration
- 7 hours 44 minutes
- Release Date
- 2 July 2022
- ISBN
- 9798200900213
- Format
- Audiobook
- Publisher
- Blackstone Publishing
- Genre
- Fiction: general and literary, Fiction: general and literary, Narrative theme: Sense of place, Fiction: general and literary
Synopsis
The bestselling author of Breasts and Eggs, Mieko Kawakami invites listeners back into her immediately recognizable fictional world with this new, extraordinary novel and demonstrates yet again why she is one of today’s most uncategorizable, insightful, and talented novelists.Fuyuko Irie is a freelance copyeditor in her mid-thirties. Working and living alone in a city where it is not easy to form new relationships, she has little regular contact with anyone other than her editor, Hijiri, a woman of the same age but with a very different disposition. When Fuyoku stops one day on a Tokyo street and notices her reflection in a storefront window, what she sees is a drab, awkward, and spiritless woman who has lacked the strength to change her life—and decides to do something about it.As the long overdue change occurs, however, painful episodes from Fuyuko’s past surface and her behavior slips further and further beyond the pale.All the Lovers in the Night is acute and insightful, entertaining and engaging; it will make listeners laugh, and it will make them cry, but it will also remind them, as only the best books do, that sometimes the pain is worth it.
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