Gifted: A Novel
Gifted: A Novel by Suzuki Suzumi, translated by Allison Markin Powell
English | October 1, 2024 | ISBN: 9798893389005 | True EPUB | 120 pages | 0.5 MB
English | October 1, 2024 | ISBN: 9798893389005 | True EPUB | 120 pages | 0.5 MB
A subtle and intimate accounting of a daughter’s final days with her mother, set amid the rush of Tokyo’s red-light district.
Drawing on her own experiences as a hostess and adult film actor, Gifted—Suzumi Suzuki’s first novel to be translated into English—offers a nuanced, frank, and intimate portrayal of the lives of a mother and daughter getting by (or not) in an industry rarely depicted authentically in literary fiction.
In the last days of her mother’s life, a young woman living in Tokyo’s red-light district is thrust into a split existence. By day, she negotiates her new role as caregiver of an abusive parent. By night, she drifts home from the hospital, goes out with other sex-workers, thinks about quitting smoking, and numbly remembers Eri, a friend who died the summer before. Her sensitivity to the details of her surroundings grounds an otherwise unstable world, one where each interaction requires a subtle negotiation of economic and sexual power, and proximity rarely means intimacy or connection. Gifted was nominated for the 167th Akutagawa Prize in 2022.