Wayne P. Lammers, Japanese-English Translator
Woman on the Other Shore
by Mitsuyo Kakuta.
Kodansha International, 2007.
ISBN 4-7700-3043-6.
This novel was awarded Japan's prestigious Naoki Prize in 2004. Sayoko, a 35-year old homemaker with a 3-year-old child begins working for Aoi, a free-spirited, single career woman her own age who runs a travel agency/housekeeping business. Unable to connect with other mothers in her neighborhood, Sayoko is drawn to Aoi's independent lifestyle and easygoing personality. Aoi has not always been the self-confident person she now appears to be. Severe classroom bullying in junior high had forced her to change schools, uprooting her family to the countryside and leaving her walking on eggshells lest she prompt a recurrence of the bullying. The present-day friendship between Sayoko and Aoi on the one hand, and Aoi's painful high school past on the other, form a gripping two-tier narrative that converges in the final chapter.
by Mitsuyo Kakuta.
Kodansha International, 2007.
ISBN 4-7700-3043-6.
This novel was awarded Japan's prestigious Naoki Prize in 2004. Sayoko, a 35-year old homemaker with a 3-year-old child begins working for Aoi, a free-spirited, single career woman her own age who runs a travel agency/housekeeping business. Unable to connect with other mothers in her neighborhood, Sayoko is drawn to Aoi's independent lifestyle and easygoing personality. Aoi has not always been the self-confident person she now appears to be. Severe classroom bullying in junior high had forced her to change schools, uprooting her family to the countryside and leaving her walking on eggshells lest she prompt a recurrence of the bullying. The present-day friendship between Sayoko and Aoi on the one hand, and Aoi's painful high school past on the other, form a gripping two-tier narrative that converges in the final chapter.
Reviews
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JapanVisitor Blog
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"Judging by most of the Japanese novels that make it into English, you might think that modern Japanese lit is all about wild sheep chases, forked tongues, and chopped up bodies. But there’s more. Thanks to translator Wayne P. Lammers, we now haveWoman on the Other Shore, a novel about two relatively normal 35-year-old women - a stay-at-home mom, and a single woman who has her own business....This carefully constructed novel starts out slow, but tension builds as secrets are revealed. Kakuta presents a vivid, albeit sometimes disturbing portrait of women in contemporary Japan."
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Blogcritics.org
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"What boundaries do you have in your life? When do you dare to cross them? InWoman on the Other Shore these two characters, two very real women, cross a boundary to discover they are not alone; there might be rivers dividing us but there are bridges linking us as well. This is a poignant and beautifully written novel, a novel that is timeless in many ways, a classic in our modern world. "
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popmatters.com
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"You could be forgiven for thinking that it sounds as dull and annoying as one of those melodramatic, “empowering” women-centered movies on the Lifetime channel. It’s not. Instead, Kakuta presents us with a rarity: a complex exploration of friendship in its depth, fragility, and necessity.... The smooth translation by the experienced Wayne P. Lammers allows us English readers to experience Kakuta’s observant voice. Here’s hoping this first English translation of this writer’s work isn’t the last. "
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asianreviewofbooks.com
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"And yet out of this seemingly slender material, an interesting novel emerges. There is a twist in the tale, of course, as Aoi reprises her life, but with positions and situations reversed. And throughout it all, there is the feeling of slight unreality: perhaps this is an allegory for a sort of reincarnation, or maybe it’s just a normal human reaction to events. This slight strangeness is curiously addicting and leads one through the novel to its not entirely unsurprising yet nevertheless satisfying end."
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Publishers Weekly
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"Success, the two women discover, lies not in corporate ladders, family, conforming to other people's expectations or cutting all ties to follow your bliss. Instead, it lies in the very process of work, and in the connections that arise in that process-with difference being the one thing everyone has in common. The translation occasionally feels more colloquial than necessary, but it nicely conveys the novel's mood of quiet epiphany."
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