Slow Boat

Author: Furukawa, Hideo

Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945)

Published on 18 July 2024 by PUSHKIN PRESS in the United Kingdom.

A

startling novella from the heir to Haruki Murakami and Gabriel García

Márquez

'I've never made it out of

Tokyo. I can't tell you how many times I've asked myself if the boundary is

real. Of course it's real. And if you think I'm lying, you can come and see

for yourself.'

Trapped in Tokyo, left behind by

a series of girlfriends, the narrator of Slow Boat sizes

up his situation. His missteps, his violent rebellions, his tiny victories.

But he is not a passive loser, content to accept all that fate hands him. He

attempts one last escape to the edges of the city, holding the only safety

net he has known - his dreams.

Filled with lyrical longing

and humour, Slow Boat captures perfectly the urge to get

away and the necessity of finding yourself in a world which might never even

be looking for you.

Hideo Furukawa,

born in 1966, is an acclaimed and prize-winning writer, hailed by many in

Japan's literary world as a prodigy worthy of inheriting the mantle of Haruki

Murakami. He was awarded the Mishima Prize in 2006 for

Love. His best-known novel is the 2008 Holy

Family, an epic work of alternate history set in north-eastern

Japan, where he was born.