This delicate novel traces the blossoming relationship between a lonely 38-year-old office worker and her sensei, or teacher, 30 years her senior, after a chance encounter in a local bar. As their relationship develops into a deeply moving love affair, Kawakami marks the passing of time with painterly elegance, through the change in seasons. The duo’s relationship “is traced with astonishing delicacy and humor... until the unspoken catches them and the reader by stealth,” Jaggi says of the novel.
