Wayne P. Lammers, Japanese-English Translator
The Shadow of a Blue Cat
by Naoyuki Ii.
Dalkey Archive Press, 2011. ISBN 9781564786418 .
Businessman Yuki Yajima is fifty-one years old. He and his wife, Asako, are the parents of two daughters: Ryo, seventeen, and Yuka, an infant of only two months. Asking himself why he’s allowed himself to become a father again at his age, Yuki begins to remember his uncle, who died quite young—younger, indeed, than Yuki is now. Thinking of this man, whom the young Yuki idolized, and who first introduced the boy to authors like Kenzaburo Oe and the Marquis de Sade, serves as a strange tipping point: allowing a sense of chaos and complexity back into his otherwise well-heeled life. A rare work of fiction focused simply on a man of integrity—a dying breed, in novels—The Shadow of a Blue Cat meticulously renders his life and opinions as Yuki tries to find a middle path between the radicalism of his uncle’s life and the quiet bourgeois home he’s worked so hard to build.
by Naoyuki Ii.
Dalkey Archive Press, 2011. ISBN 9781564786418 .
Businessman Yuki Yajima is fifty-one years old. He and his wife, Asako, are the parents of two daughters: Ryo, seventeen, and Yuka, an infant of only two months. Asking himself why he’s allowed himself to become a father again at his age, Yuki begins to remember his uncle, who died quite young—younger, indeed, than Yuki is now. Thinking of this man, whom the young Yuki idolized, and who first introduced the boy to authors like Kenzaburo Oe and the Marquis de Sade, serves as a strange tipping point: allowing a sense of chaos and complexity back into his otherwise well-heeled life. A rare work of fiction focused simply on a man of integrity—a dying breed, in novels—The Shadow of a Blue Cat meticulously renders his life and opinions as Yuki tries to find a middle path between the radicalism of his uncle’s life and the quiet bourgeois home he’s worked so hard to build.
Reviews
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Publishers Weekly
(May 23, 2011) |
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Hey Small Press! Book List
(July, 2011) |
"Dalkey Archive Press is the most accomplished publisher of translated fiction in America. Their upcoming release of Naoyuki li's The Shadow of a Blue Cat, translated from the Japanese by Wayne P. Lammers, continues that tradition.... My favorite moments in the novel were Yuki's encounters with his teenage daughter Ryo's boyfriend. A bourgeois family drama - but much less annoying than Franzen's Freedom and set in Japan."
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BaltimoreSun.com
(July 28, 2011) |
"Much of the Japanese fiction published in the United States tends towards the offbeat and disturbing. 'The Shadow of a Blue Cat' is a different breed entirely.... Ii's first book to be translated into English provides a refreshing glimpse of ordinary life in contemporary Japan."
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