Available Formats
Territory of Light
By (Author) Yuko Tsushima
Translated by Geraldine Harcourt
Penguin Books Ltd
Penguin Classics
6th June 2023
23rd February 2023
United Kingdom
General
Fiction
Fiction in translation
895.6/36
Hardback
192
Width 117mm, Height 168mm, Spine 18mm
207g
Introducing Little Clothbound Classics- irresistible, mini editions of short stories, novellas and essays from the world's greatest writers, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith. Territory of Light is the radiant story of a young woman, living alone in Tokyo with her two-year-old daughter, in her first year of separation from her husband. At once tender and lacerating, luminous and unsettling, Territory of Light is a novel of abandonment, desire and transformation. It was originally published in twelve parts in the Japanese literary monthly Gunzo, between 1978 and 1979, each chapter marking the months in real time, and remains one of Yuko Tsushima's most beloved works.
Tsushima evades any label, her fiction transcends gender to focus on the existential loneliness that is at the heart of humanity.Kris Kosaka, Japan Times
Wonderfully poetic ... extraordinary freshness ... a Virginia Woolf qualityMargaret Drabble, BBC Radio 3
Spiky, atmospheric and intimate, filled with moments of strangeness that linger in the mindThe Spectator
In this short, powerful novel lurk the joy and guilt of single parents everywhereGuardian
This exquisite and poignant novel . . . will resonate with single mothers always and everywhereShami Chakrabarti
An extraordinary book . . . cool analytic intelligence propelled by sudden eruptions of passionLisa Appignanesi
An astonishing and exquisite masterpiece about love, motherhood, female independence, and the restoration of a damaged family. Yuko Tsushima is an unforgettable name alongside great masters like Virginia Woolf, Alice Munro and Elizabeth StroutJ. M. Lee, author of The Investigation
Yuko Tsushima (Author) Yuko Tsushima was born in Tokyo in 1947, the daughter of the novelist Osamu Dazai, who took his own life when she was one year old. Her prolific literary career began with her first collection of short stories, Shaniku-sai (Carnival), which she published at the age of twenty-four. She won many awards, including the Izumi Kyoka Prize for Literature (1977), the Kawabata Prize (1983) and the Tanizaki Prize (1998). She died in 2016.