Inhabitation - A Novel
Teru Miyamoto
Translator Roger K. Thomas
Publisher: Counterpoint
Summary
Only this award-winning Japanese master’s fourth book in English Inhabitation (In Japanese, HARU NO YUME) is a work that is frequently cited by Miyamoto enthusiasts, and one that will spark interest in English language readers with its arresting imagery. The prismatic nature and arc of Miyamoto’s work, which explores a kind of spiritual or moral isolation, calls to mind that of Carson McCullers or Sherwood Anderson as his American counterparts. Miyamoto is among Japan’s most widely read living authors, born in Kobe, whose first two novels Muddy River (Doro no Kawa) and Firefly River (Hotarugawa) were bestsellers in Japan and won Japan’s most prestigious literary awards, the Dazai Osamu Prize and Akutagawa Prize Praise from Booksellers "Miyamoto’s Inhabitation, appearing for the first time in English thanks to the fine folks at Counterpoint Press, begins simply and strangely: Tetsuyuki, in the pitch black of a new apartment, drives a nail into a pillar, and accidentally pierces through a lizard that miraculously survives. The novel unfolds from there, dealing with themes of love, human relationships, life, and death. Blending the surreal with the mundane, Miyamoto’s novel is sure to appeal to fans of Japanese literature and those who enjoy a fair dose of existential philosophizing in their novels. Strange, bleakly humorous, and at its core deeply human, Inhabitation is an engaging literary novel about the deeper questions in life." —Caleb Masters, Bookmarks (Winston-Salem, NC)