‘A symphony of interconnected lives and a reflection on isolation and intimacy set in Tokyo.’
– Goodnight Tokyo
[ About Goodnight Tokyo ]
Matsui is the driver of a taxi the colour of the night sky. Every night between the hours of 1 am and 4.30 am, Matsui guides his taxi around the streets of Tokyo, collecting passengers and their stories.
Seen through the eyes of a cast of colourful characters, Goodnight Tokyo takes the reader on an intimate journey around Tokyo after dark, when Tokyo’s eccentrics and insomniacs emerge, and a small grain of madness begins to germinate in the city’s night air. Confessions of intimacy and loneliness merge with the surreal: the funeral of an old telephone, the flea-market in which objects are bartered for that don’t actually exist.
Told over a number of nights – and punctuated by Matsui’s dawn arrival at his favourite canteen for a plate of their famous ham and eggs –Atsuhiro Yoshida weaves a web of stories that prove to be intimately and compellingly connected.
[ My Review ]
Goodnight Tokyo by Atsuhiro Yoshida publishes July 18th with Europa Editions UK and is translated from the Japanese by Haydn Trowell. It is the first novel to be published in English by a Japanese novelist who is described as ‘outlandishly bizarre’.
Haydn Trowell described Goodnight Tokyo as ‘simultaneously a whimsical, eccentric ode to the nocturnal rhythms of one of the world’s largest cities and a vivid illustration of urban solitude and the search for connection and meaning.’ (Electric Lit)
I have read very little Japanese fiction but I did thoroughly enjoy The Honjin Murders by Seishi Yokomizo (Pushkin Press), which I reviewed in 2020 (originally published in 1946). There is something very refreshing about picking up a book that wouldn’t normally cross your path so I was delighted to dive into the writing of this award-winning book designer and author of over forty books, courtesy of Europa Editions UK.
Intimate is the word I would use to best describe this gentle novel that captures the diverse, and sometimes eccentric, lives of a bunch of Tokyoites as they travel in the company of Matsui, a late night taxi driver. Divided into twelve chapters, each one tells a separate tale that could theoretically be read as a collection of short stories but Atsuhiro Yoshida refers to Goodnight Tokyo as a ‘serial short story’ – ‘a collection of short stories that at first glance appear to be separate tales, but which are actually connected to one another, and which can be read as a full-length novel.’ He further goes on to explain how he would better describe Goodnight Tokyo as ‘a collection of intersecting short stories’. In a fascinating insight behind his work, he reflects, in the Afterword, on the fact that ‘intersections are of particular importance to this work’ and he goes on to analyse the narrative arc associated with each.
Matsui works for the Blackbird cab company, one that specialises ‘in serving customers from evening through to early morning‘. As he drives around the dark streets of the city in his ‘midnight blue taxi’, he picks up various passengers, some he may have crossed paths with before mixed with many new faces. Each individual has a story, a reason to be in his taxi in the late hours or early morning and with ingenious plotting Atsuhiro Yoshida intricately weaves their stories into this delicate montage of human experiences. There is something extraordinarily quiet and subtle about the manner in which the lives of these ordinary people with their quirks and foibles unfold over a few nights.
Goodnight Tokyo‘s cover was designed by Italian illustrator Ginevra Rapisardi. It really captures the Japanese passion for cartoon art with its Manga style drawing. Manga relates to a type of Japanese graphic novel that is normally serialised across magazines or volumes, which links back to Atsuhiro Yoshida’s earlier reference to the serial short story and his approach to writing this book.
Goodnight Tokyo is a novel that I’m assuming reads slightly differently in Japanese and one almost feels it should be read late at night in a Japanese diner somewhere as the darkness outside gives way to sunrise. I haven’t yet read Toshikazu Kawaguchi or Haruki Murakami but I expect that comparisons will be made to their extremely popular work. Goodnight Tokyo is the English-language debut for Atsuhiro Yoshida and is a charismatic reading experience. Exploring the fragility of human nature it examines the concept of fate and why, as individuals, and for whatever reason, we journey on a path that can take us on an unexpected yet, ofttimes, welcome adventure.
“But morning eventually gives way to day, and day to night, the pale moonlight falling once more over Tokyo’s diners, its bars, its antique shops, its film studios, and its telephone consultation rooms.
And of course, Matsui’s midnight blue taxi was once again out on the streets.’
[ Bio ]
Born in Tokyo in 1962, Atsuhiro Yoshida is an award-winning book designer and renowned author of over forty books. Also translated into French, German, and Italian, Goodnight Tokyo is Yoshida’s English-language debut
Haydn Trowell is a literary translator who specializes in contemporary Japanese fiction, and the translator of Maki Kashimada’s Akutagawa Prize-winning novel Touring the Land of the Dead (Europa 2021). He holds a doctorate in translation studies and literary stylistics from Monash University, Australia.
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