{"product_id":"minas-matchbox-hardcover","title":"Mina's Matchbox - Hardcover","description":"\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eYoko Ogawa\u003c\/b\u003e (Author), \u003cb\u003eStephen B. Snyder\u003c\/b\u003e (Translator)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eFrom the award-winning, psychologically astute author of \u003ci\u003eThe Memory Police\u003c\/i\u003e, a hypnotic, introspective novel about an affluent Japanese family navigating buried secrets, and their young house guest who uncovers them. \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"Yoko Ogawa is a quiet wizard, casting her words like a spell, conjuring a world of curiosity and enchantment, secrets and loss. I read \u003ci\u003eMina's Matchbox\u003c\/i\u003e like a besotted child, enraptured, never wanting it to end.\" --Ruth Ozeki, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Book of Form and Emptiness\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn the spring of 1972, twelve-year-old Tomoko leaves her mother behind in Tokyo and boards a train alone for Ashiya, a coastal town in Japan, to stay with her aunt's family. Tomoko's aunt is an enigma and an outlier in her working-class family, and her magnificent home--and handsome foreign husband, the president of a soft drink company--are symbols of that status. The seventeen rooms are filled with German-made furnishings; there are sprawling gardens and even an old zoo where the family's pygmy hippopotamus resides. The family is just as beguiling as their mansion--Tomoko's dignified and devoted aunt, her German great-aunt, and her dashing, charming uncle, who confidently sits as the family's patriarch. At the center of the family is Tomoko's cousin Mina, a precocious, asthmatic girl of thirteen who draws Tomoko into an intoxicating world full of secret crushes and elaborate storytelling. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn this elegant jewel box of a book, Yoko Ogawa invites us to witness a powerful and formative interlude in Tomoko's life. Behind the family's sophistication are complications that Tomoko struggles to understand--her uncle's mysterious absences, her great-aunt's experience of the Second World War, her aunt's misery. Rich with the magic and mystery of youthful experience, \u003ci\u003eMina's Matchbox \u003c\/i\u003eis an evocative snapshot of a moment frozen in time--and a striking depiction of a family on the edge of collapse.\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eYOKO OGAWA\u003c\/b\u003e has won every major Japanese literary award. Her fiction has appeared in \u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker, A Public Space, \u003c\/i\u003eand\u003ci\u003e Zoetrope: All-Story\u003c\/i\u003e. Her works include \u003ci\u003eThe Memory Police, The Diving Pool, \u003c\/i\u003ea collection of three novellas;\u003ci\u003e The Housekeeper and the Professor; Hotel Iris;\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eRevenge.\u003c\/i\u003e She lives in Ashiya, Japan.\u003c\/p\u003e\n        \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 288\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 1.14 x 8.51 x 5.79 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e August 13, 2024\u003c\/div\u003e\n            ","brand":"Books by splitShops","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51751716127008,"sku":"9780593316085","price":28.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0974\/9764\/5344\/files\/bc84f88c531c49e771d821f16e3146ac.webp?v=1779978483","url":"https:\/\/ebocreations.com\/products\/minas-matchbox-hardcover","provider":"The E-Book Oasis LLC","version":"1.0","type":"link"}