Publishers Weekly
08/21/2023
This brisk 1988 novel from Yoshimoto (The Lake) appears in English for the first time in an adroit translation from Yoneda. The story centers on Yayoi, a precocious 19-year-old who displayed clairvoyant traits as a child. Her mother tells her that when she was a little girl, she would answer the phone and say who was calling (“Even people you didn’t know, and you were almost always right”). Yayoi feels inexplicably drawn to her eccentric aunt who lives in a large dilapidated house and teaches at a music college, and has a nagging sense that she’s forgotten something important from her childhood. Slowly, her premonitions become revelations, through dreams and visions, as she begins to piece together all she has forgotten, and the truth of her childhood is confirmed by her aunt and her brother, Tetsuo. Yoshimoto builds a satisfying narrative of a young girl figuring out who she is, and how her family may be more than she realized. While much of the plot hinges on Yayoi’s preternatural intuitions, each step is carefully plotted to slowly unearth the secrets of the past. No word is misspent in Yoshimoto’s taut tale. (Oct.)
From the Publisher
Longlisted for the PEN Translation Prize
An Amazon Best Book of the Month
The Washington Post, A Must Read Book for Fall
Tokyo Weekender, A Most Anticipated Title
The Millions, A Most Anticipated Book of the Year
Library Journal, A Most Anticipated Book of the Year
"Fans of Kitchen, the 1988 debut that turned Yoshimoto into a sensation, will delight in Asa Yoneda’s translation of The Premonition. [. . .] Luscious . . . Yoshimoto bucks beautifully against convention." —Maya Binya, The New York Times Book Review
"Casts a delicate spell . . . Between Yoshimoto and her translator, Asa Yoneda, there is something otherworldly . . . The novel taps into anxiety about memory, childhood and the peculiar feeling that there’s a hidden truth about ourselves we’ve forgotten, and if only we took pains to find it we might finally feel at home." —Genevieve Gaunt, The Spectator
"Yoshimoto has always had this extraordinary ability to convey the ephemeral natures of her main characters in plain yet diaphanous language: ‘she harboured something vast, lost, and familiar, and it was like a siren call to those of us who were missing parts of our childhoods. It was something deeper than night, longer than eternity, out of reach.’ Yoshimoto’s writing could be described the same way." —Fi Churchman, ArtReview
"The Premonition is a quick but effective read about allowing the secrets of the past to create a walkway into a truthful new future." —Jana Siciliano, Bookreporter
"Yoshimoto packs a lot of detail and intrigue in this spare novel . . . A bestseller over three decades ago, readers familiar with Yoshimoto’s work will not want to miss this one. It is a welcomed addition to her oeuvre for English reading audiences and definitely worth the wait." —Shirley Quan, Library Journal (starred review)
"One of Japan’s most beloved contemporary authors . . . Yoshimoto infuses the familiar coming-of-age experience (leaving home, separation from parents) with (of course) unusual twists." —Booklist
"Yoshimoto builds a satisfying narrative of a young girl figuring out who she is, and how her family may be more than she realized. While much of the plot hinges on Yayoi’s preternatural intuitions, each step is carefully plotted to slowly unearth the secrets of the past. No word is misspent in Yoshimoto’s taut tale." —Publishers Weekly
"The women in Yoshimoto’s short stories and novels often have an aura of loneliness around them, an acknowledgment that what they are going through in this world, they are going through on their own. And yet, there is also an acceptance of this truth, and an accompanying resilience that makes them compelling—and that compels them forward in their lives, as they seek out answers, in order to live honestly, on their own terms, in their own truth." —Kristin Iversen
Library Journal
★ 10/27/2023
Following celebrated Japanese author Yoshimoto's last work translated for U.S. audiences (Moshi Moshi) comes a bestseller that was originally published in 1988. Family secrets rise to the surface in this engaging tale between 19-year-old Yayoi, adopted at a young age after her parents were tragically killed in an accident, and her biological aunt Yukino, a seemingly eccentric music teacher at a private high school. Yayoi and her brother Tetsuo are less than a year apart and have an eerily close relationship. Together, the two set out on a mini adventure in search of Yukino when she disappears. Yayoi, who had been gifted with ESP in her youth, uses her now limited intuition to find her aunt, and uncovers much more about Yukino's personal life, and her own, than was anticipated. VERDICT Yoshimoto packs a lot of detail and intrigue in this spare novel (with additional credit to Yoneda for her translation). A bestseller over three decades ago, readers familiar with Yoshimoto's work will not want to miss this one. It is a welcomed addition to her oeuvre for English reading audiences and definitely worth the wait.—Shirley Quan
APRIL 2024 - AudioFile
This moody coming-of-age novella was a bestseller when it appeared in Japan decades ago. Now it is newly translated and appears in the audio format, narrated by Kathleen Li. She convincingly delivers 19-year-old Yayol's angst, feelings of dislocation, and vulnerability as she seeks answers about her past by trying to uncover lost memories. Li's narration is often precise and restrained. The romances featured in the story involve a love affair between adopted siblings and another between a high school student and a teacher. While they may seem inappropriate, the story suggests that love doesn't always follow the traditional pathway. This listening experience is like a Japanese watercolor--an evocative celebration of grace, love, color, and style. D.L.G. © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2023-07-13
A young woman’s relationship with her eccentric aunt leads her to startling revelations about her life and her past.
Nineteen-year-old Yayoi is haunted by an inability to remember her past. She has an uncanny sense of the future, however: She can often sense who will be on the phone when it begins ringing. After an odd vision in her family’s bathroom, she becomes unsettled enough to leave home, landing on the doorstep of her young aunt, Yukino. Yukino is only about 11 years Yayoi’s senior, but she has already settled into a “spinster” persona, living alone in a large, cluttered house and teaching music at a local high school. When Yayoi begins to press Yukino for answers to questions she has about her blurry past, the pieces of Yayoi’s past—and future—begin to fall into place. This short novel was first published in Japan in 1988, but its floaty interiority feels timeless. (Even Yukino’s obsession with the Friday the 13th films still feels plausible.) In some ways, this is an archetypal coming-of-age story about being young and needing to leave home in order to gain clarity, but both the style and the plot particulars (including a slightly off-kilter love story subplot) set it apart. Translator Yoneda elegantly renders Yoshimoto’s synesthetic descriptions and atmospheric settings, which range from Tokyo to numerous rural locales. Yoshimoto has become a happier writer—or at least more interested in writing happy characters—as her career has unfolded. But this melancholy bildungsroman acknowledges the way that leaving behind adolescence can evoke the bittersweet sensation of waking up from a strange and vivid dream. “Only by coming through it,” Yayoi thinks of her visit to Yukino, “could I get to living the rest of my life.”
Worth the 35-year wait for Yoshimoto’s Anglophone fans.
