Spring Sleepers

Part of the Keshiki project: a series of 8 short stories translated from the original Japanese and available as separate pamphlets as well as part of an overall boxed set.

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KESHIKI is a series of exquisitely designed chapbooks, showcasing the work of eight of the most exciting writers working in Japan today. Yuki has not slept in two months. He's been infected with genuine insomnia a condition spreading throughout the city's high-profile businessmen. At first, this is a condition worth boasting about: the less Yuki sleeps, the better he feels, and he gathers with the city's elite in clubs and bars to compare how long they've been awake. It is only when he visits a sanatorium that Yuki is told his memory is quickly deteriorating, and, suddenly, Yoshida's fragmented style starts to make sense... Dream-like, sensual and unnerving, these offerings by Kyoko Yoshida, a Japanese author writing in English, surprise the reader with their texture and imagery. Spring Sleepers, the title story, frames insomnia as the contemporary condition the narrative sliding from metropolitan hyperawareness to delirious exhaustion in the space of a few pages. Spring Awakening, a koan-like mediation, describes a newly born eel emerging from then returning to its home. Finally, Yoshida reflects on her time spent in Norwich, the City of Writing.