ABCD Reads "Territory of Light" by Yūko Tsushima

ABCD Reads Territory of Light by Yūko Tsushima.

[RESULTS of the poll for this event]

:: ABOUT THE BOOK ::
"he highly regarded Japanese novelist Yūko Tsushima, who died two years ago, drew on her own experiences for this 1979 novel, translated by Geraldine Harcourt, about a single mother struggling to build a life in Tokyo. Its 12 linked tales of the city are fine-grained to the point of mundanity – finding an apartment, discovering a leak, visiting a park – but in Tsushima’s hands they achieve a deceptive, luminous clarity.
Tsushima is honest about her narrator’s difficulties: she boozes, leaves the chores undone and hurls 'vile abuse' at her two-year-old daughter when woken in the night. But the two are peas in a pod – each spirited, a poor fit for conventionality, they jump in puddles and swing between screaming matches and fierce tenderness. In this short, powerful novel lurk the joy and guilt of single parents everywhere." (from The Guardian)

"Territory of Light is the luminous story of a young woman, living alone in Tokyo with her three-year-old daughter. Its twelve, stand-alone fragments follow the first year of her separation from her husband. The novel is full of light, sometimes comforting and sometimes dangerous: sunlight streaming through windows, dappled light in the park, distant fireworks, dazzling floodwater, desaturated streetlamps and earth-shaking explosions. The seemingly artless prose is beautifully patterned: the cumulative effect is disarmingly powerful and images remain seared into your retina for a long time afterwards." (from Goodreads)

:: ABOUT THE EVENT ::
You are welcome to arrive 30 minutes before the event and stay 30 minutes or longer afterward to connect with other attendees outside the book talk.

Please ensure you have read the book before attending (though finishing any book is not a barrier to participating, as long as you don't mind spoilers).

First-time attendees can join for free. If the event is full, we maintain an unofficial waitlist. Please send Michael a direct message for more information, in either case.

We request a $3 contribution from regular attendees to help cover our monthly meetup costs.

:: ABOUT OUR NEXT BOOK ::
At the end of each event, we will ask for nominees for our next book. If you have a good one in mind, please ensure it is between 200-400 pages long, available from the Toronto Public Library, and counts as contemporary literary fiction (though these are not hard and fast rules). When enough nominees are collected, Michael will send the members a direct message with a link where you can vote.