Amrita

Banana Yoshimoto is a master storyteller . . . The sensuality is subtle, masked, and extraordinarily powerful. The language is deceptively simple. --Chicago Tribune

Entering Banana Yoshimoto's fictional world is a little like living as an expatriate in Tokyo--everyday things are disconcertingly different. The exotic lurks around every corner . . . What sets Yoshimoto apart, though, is her blunt candor . . . Amrita is difficult to forget. --San Francisco Chronicle

Yoshimoto's most fully realized work to date . . . Her firm grasp of her characters, her surefooted prose and her wide-eyed exploration of everything from American pop culture to the Japanese language make this one of the most satisfying books of the summer. --Time Out New York

Ms. Yoshimoto has an effortless ability to penetrate her characters' hearts. --New York Times Book Review

Yoshimoto shouldn't be shy about basking in her celebrity. Her achievements are already legend. --Boston Globe

Yoshimoto knows the remedial potential of a good, old-fashioned narrative . . . Her characters are immersed in a youth culture that owes more than a little to our notoriously shallow, decadent fin de si cle. They sleep around, eat street ramen, and listen with pleasure to Nirvana, but their lives are also marred by old-fashioned timeless tragedy. They lose their jobs and marry unsuccessfully; the people they love die before their time . . .Yoshimoto has never been afraid of trauma. --The Nation

This Kundera-esque novel (from the hugely popular Japanese author of Kitchen) is more about the grinding unabatement of everyday life than the shocks that perforate it, and all of its spirits are, mercifully, blithe. --Entertainment Weekly

In the popular young author's latest novel, an oddly winsome blend of personal psychology and the paranormal overlay the story of a young woman's fight to reclaim herself after twin tragedies . . . The earnest, peripatetic confusion of Sakumi's narrative whisks the reader from one peak moment to another . . . Endearing . . . Will surely fit in any collection where contemporary fiction circulates well. --Library Journal

All of Yoshimoto's trademark themes and edgy lyricism are at work in this novel, her most ambitious work to date . . . and many scenes crackle with her hot-wired magic . . . Sakumi, the narrator, is enchantingly muddled, sincere, and full of love for her irregular family . . . [Yoshimoto] spins a mesmerizing and haunting tale. --Booklist