Mokusei!

A Love Story

Cees Nooteboom

Translated by Adrienne Dixon

 

5 x 8 inches, 64 pp. November 2017

ISBN : 9780857424846

Rs  499.00 (HB)
$19.00 (HB)
£12.99 (HB)

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In Tokyo, a Dutchman and a Belgian talk about the two faces of Japan—the European (exotic, pure) idea of the country and the real country. One is a diplomat, the other a photographer. The diplomat helps the photgrapher find a model with whom he documents the 'typical Japanese', complete with shots of Mount Fuji. He falls in love with the model and, over the next few years, returns of Japan as often as possible. He is in ruins, he neglects his friends, he feels disillusioned in the Netherlands. And when they meet for the last time and prepare to repeat the photo session at Mount Fuji, it is as if time as stood still—nothing seems to have changed, yet everything has. Mokusei! is not only a lyrical exploration of the beauty of Japan and the intensity of love but also a meditation on the very nature of time.

Cees Nooteboom is the author of A Song of Truth and Semblance, All Souls’ Day and The Following Story, among other books.

 

 

Adrienne Dixon is a translator of Dutch and Flemish literature.

Fiction