A Financial Times Translated Fiction Book of the Year Translated from the Japanese by Louise
Heal Kawai Minoru Aose is an architect whose greatest achievement is to have designed the
Yoshino house a prizewinning and much discussed private residence built in the shadow of Mount
Asama. Aose has never been able to replicate this triumph and his career seems to have hit a
barrier while his marriage has failed. He is shocked to learn that the Yoshino House is empty
apart from a single chair stood facing the north light of nearby Mount Asama. How can he live
with the rejection of the work he had put his heart and soul into the dream house he would
have loved to own himself? Aose determines that he must discover the truth behind this cruel
and inexplicable dismissal of the Yoshino house and in doing so will find out a truth that goes
back to the core of who he is. Plotted with the subtlety of his bestselling masterpiece Six
Four The North Light is Yokoyama at his elusive tantalising and surprising best.
