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Published: 15/08/2024
Set in 1970s Japan, this luminous novel from the author of the International Booker Prize shortlisted The Memory Police follows twelve-year-old Tokomo who after her father’s death moves into a mysterious uncle’s mansion.
After the death of her father, twelve-year-old Tomoko is sent to live for a year with her uncle in the coastal town of Ashiya. It is a year which will change her life.
The 1970s are bringing changes to Japan and her uncle's magnificent colonial mansion opens up a new and unfamiliar world for Tomoko; its sprawling gardens are even home to a pygmy hippo the family keeps as a pet. Tomoko finds her relatives equally exotic and beguiling and her growing friendship with her cousin Mina draws her into an intoxicating world full of secret crushes and elaborate storytelling.
As the two girls share confidences their eyes are opened to the complications of the adult world. Tomoko’s understanding of her uncle’s mysterious absences, her grandmother’s wartime experiences and her aunt’s unhappiness will all come into clearer focus as she and Mina build an enduring bond. Rich with the magic and mystery of youth, Mina’s Matchbox is an evocative snapshot of a moment frozen in time, and a striking depiction of a family on the edge of collapse.
Publisher: Vintage Publishing
ISBN: 9781787302761
Number of pages: 288
Weight: 395 g
Dimensions: 225 x 145 x 28 mm
MEDIA REVIEWS
Yoko Ogawa is a quiet wizard, casting her words like a spell, conjuring a world of curiosity and enchantment, secrets and loss. I read Mina’s Matchbox like a besotted child, enraptured, never wanting it to end. - Ruth Ozeki, author of The Book of Form and Emptiness
A transfixing coming of age tale set in early 1970s Japan. [Tomoko] uncovers a host of secrets that force her to question her family’s complicated history - Time Magazine, Summer Reads
Dreamy and whimsical, Mina’s Matchbox traffics in the themes at which Ogawa always excels: memory, identity, and nostalgia - Esquire
A conspicuously gifted writer…To read Ogawa is to enter a dreamlike state... She possesses an effortless, glassy, eerie brilliance' - Guardian
This engaging bildungsroman explores the friendship and mutual curiosity between two extraordinary young people...Facing complicated themes with deceptively simple language...A charming yet guileless exploration of childhood’s ephemeral pleasures and reflexive poignancy. - Kirkus
A masterpiece...a novel that makes us see differently - Guardian, on THE MEMORY POLICE
Strange, beautiful and affecting - Sunday Times, on THE MEMORY POLICE
Highly original. Infinitely charming. And ever so touching - Paul Auster,on THE HOUSEKEEPER AND THE PROFESSOR
One of Japan’s most acclaimed authors - Time Magazine
Ogawa pulls off the rare feat of making childhood memories both credible and provocative. Readers will be hypnotized - Publishers Weekly
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“A quietly memorable book”
Our shop Book group had read Ogawa's "The Housekeeper and The Professor" and loved it's "quiet" style and well observed characters. That's why I requested a copy of this book.... More
“Life as a rich kid in 1970s Japan”
Written from Tomoko's perspective, this is the account of her year living with her (very) rich cousin in the 1970s. Not a lot happens. The 2 girls go to school, read books, spend time with the pet hippo and... More
“ok”
I was expecting a story but it is more like a collection of anecdotes between two cousins, a coming-of-age one. It is very slow with no plot so it missed out a bit for me.
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