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Published May 2017
464 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
Award-winning novelist Minae Mizumura demystifies the notion of the selfless Japanese mother and the adult daughter honor-bound to care for her.
Mitsuki Katsura, a Japanese woman in her mid-fifties, is a French-language instructor at a private university in Tokyo. Her husband, whom she met in Paris, is a professor at another private university. He is having an affair with a much younger woman.
In addition to her husband's infidelity, Mitsuki must deal with her ailing eighty-something mother, a demanding, self-absorbed woman who is far from the image of the patient, self-sacrificing Japanese matriarch. Mitsuki finds herself dreaming of the day when her mother will finally pass on. While doing everything she can to ensure her mother's happiness, she grows weary of the responsibilities of a doting daughter and worries she is sacrificing her chance to find fulfillment in her middle age.
Inheritance from Mother not only offers insight into a complex and paradoxical culture, but is also a profound work about mothers and daughters, marriage, old age, and the resilience of women.
"In this compelling exploration of family history and its impact on relationships and traditions, Mizumura offers insight into how Japanese culture and shows how two daughters can survive the damage wrought by an onerous parent." - Publishers Weekly
"A long, minute, subtle consideration of aging, loyalty, and the bonds of love grounded in the material details of Japanese culture but resonating far beyond." - Kirkus
"A fascinating example of the overlap of Japanese and foreign influences, nicely brought to the fore by Mizumura." - Complete Review
"Inheritance from Mother is a thoughtful examination of the emotional complexities and contradictions that surround the aging and death of a parent. Through deft, engrossing storytelling, Mizumura addresses the reality of this all too commonplace experience. It's a timely, substantial novel and a pleasure to read." - Structo Magazine
"Minae Mizumura's Inheritance from Mother is a deeply moving exploration of the complex and often fraught relationships between mothers and daughters. Mizumura uses her astute powers of observation to reveal, layer by layer, the turmoil and anger roiling beneath the surface of her characters. A beautifully crafted novel with universal appeal." - Cari Luna, author of The Revolution of Every Day
"Mizumura's previous novel in English was transcendently romantic; in Inheritance from Mother, romance manifests mainly as liability and false lure, while the years devolve from poetry to prose." - Anna Shapiro, author of Living on Air
"In this coming of a certain age novel, the longings and desires of a middle-aged daughter are as bountiful as those of Emma Bovary. If Douglas Sirk and Agatha Christie went on a writing junket to Japan, they might return with this quietly seductive novel, in which Minae Mizumura's heroine uses her mother's inheritance to compose a new life story for herself." - Judith Pascoe, Professor of English, University of Iowa
"In this loving homage to Japan's century-long tradition of serialized fiction, Mizumura has taken all the classic themes of the grand newspaper novel–sibling rivalries, unhappy marriages, family inheritances–and woven them into a moving tale for our own day." - Michael K. Bourdaghs, Professor of Modern Japanese Literature, University of Chicago
"This is a harrowing novel that truly hits home. Caregiving, marital infidelity, economic uncertainty, the threat of old age and enfeeblement: all the reasons why 'it's tough being a woman' are here on full display...This book's answer to the ultimate question of which to choose, love or money, is at once utterly contemporary and profound." - Asahi Shimbun
"The longing for soaring love and the graphic trials of caregiving and married life. The beauty of ideals and the ugliness of reality. This exquisite novel, though accepting of the world's heavy shackles, is touched throughout by a soft, fresh breeze." - Mainichi Shimbun
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Minae Mizumura is one of the most important writers in Japan today. Born in Tokyo, she moved with her family to Long Island, New York, when she was twelve. She studied French literature at Yale College and Yale Graduate School. Her other novels include the Yomiuri Prize–winning A True Novel, Zoku meian (Light and Dark Continued), a sequel to the unfinished classic Light and Dark by Natsume Soseki, and Shishosetsu from left to right (An I-Novel from Left to Right), an autobiographical work. Her most recent book in English, The Fall of Language in the Age of English, was published in 2015 by Columbia University Press. She lives in Tokyo.
Juliet Winters Carpenter studied Japanese language and literature at the University of Michigan and the Inter-University Center for Japanese Language Studies in Tokyo. Carpenter's translation of Kobo Abe's novel Secret Rendezvous won the 1980 Japan–United States Friendship Commission Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature, and her translation of Minae Mizumura's A True Novel won the same prize for 2014–2015, making her the only person to have won this prestigious award twice.
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