My Name Is Sei Shonagon - Hardcover

Blensdorf, Jan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1585674435 ISBN 13: 9781585674435

Publisher: The Overlook Press, 2003

Synopsis

In a small incense shop in modern Tokyo, amid the manic consumerism of cartoon-colored Shibuya youth culture, incense is still made in the ancient way―slowly ground by hand and matured over time. Above the shop, a young woman sits behind a painted screen, listening to men unburden themselves about their work-dominated lives. She calls herself “Sei Shonagon,” after the eleventh-century woman who wrote The Pillow Book. This exquisite first novel is a Pillow Book for the twenty-first century; its “Sei” is a young woman who, as a child, moved to Japan from America to live with her strict, tradition-obsessed uncle after the death of her parents, an American academic and a Japanese student. As the novel opens, “Sei,” now a young woman, lies in a hospital bed, hearing sounds around her, unable to speak except silently to herself-"I don't even know if you are still alive...I’m going to talk to you anyway, tell you everything I remember.” Thus her story unfolds, back to a dark past and toward an unimaginable fate.

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

This exquisite first novel tells the story of a woman?s rebellion against the constraints of Japanese society, where the collision of twenty-first century Capitalism and a deeply traditional sexual morality conspire to keep men and women in subservience.


From the Hardcover edition.

About the Author:

Born in Australia, Jan Blensdorf has lived and worked abroad for many years, and is now based in England. My Name is Sei Shonagon grew out of two years she spent in Tokyo. This is her first novel.

About this edition

• Publisher: The Overlook Press
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 1585674435
• ISBN 13: 9781585674435
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 248