Fractured Soul: A Novel

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Description

Awarded the Prix des libraires by Frances booksellers, a universal story about music and restoring ones faith in others amid the aftermath of tremendous loss.

Tokyo, 1938. An amateur quartet, led by the compassionate Yu, gathers to practice. Suddenly, their rehearsal is brutally interrupted by military police. In the ensuing skirmish, Yus violin is smashed while his son, Rei, witnesses his fathers arrest. He will never see him again. Salvaging his fathers instrument, Rei escapes thanks to a mysterious lieutenant.

Paris, 2003. Raised in France, Reinow Jacqueshas dedicated his life to the broken violins repair: studying music, becoming an apprentice, and, eventually, a luthier. However, despite his effort to rehabilitate the damage of years ago, he struggles to reconcile his past with the present.

Yet, when a world-class violinist, connected to the lieutenant that helped him as a boy, appears, Jacques past is rekindled and he perseveres in a final bid to heal. Fractured Soul is a parable of what once was lost and what there stands to be gaineda story of immense beauty and ferocious courage.

Translated from the French by Alison Anderson

Author Bio

A Japanese writer and translator, Akira Mizubayashi was born in 1951. He first visited France in 1973 to study in Montpellier, where he became certified to teach French as a second language. Since 1983, Mizubayashi has taught French in Tokyo, and currently teaches at Sophia University. His work has been critically acclaimed in France; in 2020, Broken Soul won the Prix des libraires among other awards. Mizubayashi resides in Tokyo but writes in French.