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by Jessica Au
Winner of the inaugural Novel Prize, an elegant and subtle exploration of the mysteries of our relationships to others.
A mother and daughter travel from abroad to meet in Tokyo: they walk along the canals through the autumn evenings, escape the typhoon rains, share meals in small cafes and restaurants, and visit galleries to see some of the city's most radical modern art. All the while, they talk: about the weather, horoscopes, clothes, and objects, about family, distance, and memory. But uncertainties abound. Who is really speaking here―is it only the daughter? And what is the real reason behind this elliptical, perhaps even spectral journey? At once a careful reckoning and an elegy, Cold Enough for Snow questions whether any of us speak a common language, which dimensions can contain love, and what claim we have to truly know another's inner world.
Selected from more than 1,500 entries, Cold Enough for Snow won the Novel Prize, a new, biennial award offered by New Directions, Fitzcarraldo Editions (UK), and Giramondo (Australia), for any novel written in English that explores and expands the possibilities of the form.
What are you reading this week? And what did you think of last week’s books? (11/27/2025)
...old. It's sad to see how one of the two was systematically erased by poverty, trauma, and the suffocating social norms of the time. I'm also reading Cold Enough for Snow by Jessica Au, and A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki.
-Ann_G
"Flawed understanding, consolation, and insufficiency all infuse this compelling, unsettling novel reminiscent of Jhumpa Lahiri's Whereabouts or Rachel Cusk's Outline Trilogy. A beautifully observed book, written in precise, elegant prose that contains a wealth of deep feeling." ―Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Jessica Au's slim, spectral novel Cold Enough for Snow...deftly uses stream of consciousness to explore the legacy of inherited family traits and the difficulty of breaking away." ―The New York Times
"Au's novel is perhaps most masterly in the way it evokes our dissociation from desire―our own and other people's...we can sense it in the soft, patient warmth of Au's prose, which sometimes feels attuned to truths just out of the narrator's reach." ―The New Yorker
This information about Cold Enough for Snow was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Jessica Au is a writer based in Melbourne, Australia. Cold Enough for Snow will be published by New Directions, Fitzcarraldo Editions, and Giramondo, and is already set to be translated into twelve languages.
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