Another prominent character is Nishi, a woman who lives upstairs, whom Taro becomes acquainted with. One of the main narrators, Taro, is recently divorced and lives alone in a block of apartments slated to be sold off to developers, as the story progresses the building begins to empty of it's tenants, interestingly each of the apartments is named after signs from the zodiac, so in places characters are referred to in regards their respective sign, e.g Mrs Snake. Her first book, A Day on the Planet, was turned into a hit movie, and Spring Garden won the prestigious Akutagawa Prize in 2014.It's a little difficult to describe the events of Spring Garden without repeating the publisher's description on the reverse of the book, published as part of the Pushkin Press series of Japanese novellas Haru no niwa was awarded the Akutagawa Prize in 2014 and is translated by Polly Barton. Tomoka Shibasaki was born in 1973 in Osaka and began writing fiction while still in high school.Īfter graduating from university, she took an office job but continued writing, and was shortlisted for the Bungei Prize in 1998. First discovered by Nishi in the little-known photo-book 'Spring Garden', the sky-blue house soon becomes a focus for both Nishi and Taro: of what is lost, of what has been destroyed, and of what hope may yet lie in the future for both of them, if only they can seize it. Since the death of his father, Taro keeps to himself, but is soon drawn into an unusual relationship with the woman upstairs, Nishi, as she passes on the strange tale of the sky-blue house next door.

The mortar was lined with narrow grooves, a little too perfect for ashes to get stuck in.'Divorced and cut off from his family, Taro lives alone in one of the few occupied apartments in his block, a block that is to be torn down as soon as the remaining tenants leave. Winner of the Akutagawa Prize, a sharp, photo-realistic novella of memory and thwarted hope'He'd come to realise that it was a mistake to grind up his father's remains with such a thing.

Spring garden tomoka shibasaki