Kazu is dead. Born in Fukushima in 1933, the same year as the Japanese Emperor, his life is tied by a series of coincidences to the Imperial family and has been shaped at every turn by modern Japanese history. But his life story is also marked by bad luck, and now, in death, he is unable to rest, doomed to haunt the park near Ueno Station in Tokyo.

Conversations With Friends shares a lot of genetic material with Normal People, Rooney's second novel; both feature young Irish intellectuals getting themselves tangled up in complicated love affairs...

If you weren’t able to travel this summer but your wanderlust has hit a peak, definitely pick this one up….

The prize winning international bestseller - 800,000 copies sold in Brazil Shortlisted for The International Booker Prize 2024 Longlisted for the Dublin Literary Award 'I heard our grandmother asking what we were doing.'"Say something!" she demanded, threatening to tear out our tongues. Little did she know that one of us was holding her tongue in her hand.' Deep in Brazil's neglected Bahia hinterland, two sisters find an ancient knife beneath their grandmother's bed and, momentarily mystified by its power, decide to taste its metal. The shuddering violence that follows marks their lives and binds them together forever. Heralded as a new masterpiece, this fascinating and gripping story about the lives of subsistence farmers in Brazil's poorest region, three generations after the abolition of slavery, is at once fantastic and realist, covering themes of family, spirituality, slavery and its aftermath, and political struggle. Translated by Johnny Lorenz.