Hotel Iris

by YokoOgawa (Author), StephenSnyder (Translator)

New
Paperback
2010
$11.27

In a crumbling, seaside hotel on the coast of Japan, quiet, seventeen-year-old Mari works the front desk as her mother fusses over the off-season customers. When, one night, they are forced to eject a prostitute and a middle-aged man from his room, Mari finds herself drawn to the man's voice, in what will become the first gesture of a long seduction. The mysterious man lives quietly as a translator on an island off the coast. A widower, there are murmurs around town that he may have murdered his wife. Mari begins to visit him, but as he initiates her into a dark realm of both pain and pleasure, she finds herself also attracted to his earnest young nephew. As Mari's mother and the police begin to close in on the illicit affair, events move to a dramatic climax.

Synopsis

In a crumbling, seaside hotel on the coast of Japan, quiet, seventeen-year-old Mari works the front desk as her mother fusses over the off-season customers. When, one night, they are forced to eject a prostitute and a middle-aged man from his room, Mari finds herself drawn to the man's voice, in what will become the first gesture of a long seduction. The mysterious man lives quietly as a translator on an island off the coast. A widower, there are murmurs around town that he may have murdered his wife. Mari begins to visit him, but as he initiates her into a dark realm of both pain and pleasure, she finds herself also attracted to his earnest young nephew. As Mari's mother and the police begin to close in on the illicit affair, events move to a dramatic climax.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 176
Publisher: Harvill Secker
Published: 01 Apr 2010
ISBN 10: 1846554039
ISBN 13: 9781846554032
Book Overview: A dark and beautifully written story of a young girl's tragic love triangle with an older man and his young nephew

Media Reviews

Ogawa is original, elegant, very disturbing. --Hilary Mantel, author of WOLF HALL Praise for The Housekeeper and the Professor : I've been telling everyone about this book. . . . It's a story about love, which is quite different from a love story. It's one of the most beautiful novels. --Junot Diaz Gorgeous, cinematic. . . This novel has all the charm and restraint of any by Ishiguro or Kenzaburo Oe, and the whimsy of Murakami. -- Los Angeles Times Strangely charming, flecked with enough wit and mystery to keep us engaged throughout. -- The Washington Post Book World Praise for The Diving Pool : Still waters run dark in these bright yet eerie novellas, whose crisp, almost guileless prose hides unexpected menace. -- The New York Times Book Review Exquisitly disturbing . . . Ogawa steadily builds the tension to an unexpected crescendo. -- Elle Ogawa writes in a lean, muscular way that goes deep, expl

Author Bio

Since 1988, Yoko Ogawa has written more than twenty works of fiction and non-fiction, and has won every major Japanese literary award. Her fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, A Public Space, and Zoetrope. Harvill Secker published The Diving Pool, a collection of three novellas, in 2007 and her novel The Housekeeper and the Professor in 2009.