The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa - ISBN: 9780099521341
Paperback
Lost in time, found in numbers, a family blooms unexpectedly.

The Housekeeper and the Professor

‘a poignant tale of beauty, heart and sorrow’ Publishers Weekly

$21.25

  • Paperback

    192 pages

  • Release Date

    1 July 2010

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Summary

An enchanting story about what it means to live in the present, and about the curious equations that can create a family where one before did not exist.

He is a brilliant maths professor with a peculiar problem - ever since a traumatic head injury seventeen years ago, he has lived with only eighty minutes of short-term memory.

She is a sensitive but astute young housekeeper who is entrusted to take care of him. Each morning, as the Professor and the Housekeeper are reintroduce…

Book Details

ISBN-13:9780099521341
ISBN-10:0099521342
Author:Yoko Ogawa, Stephen Snyder
Publisher:Vintage Publishing
Imprint:Vintage
Format:Paperback
Number of Pages:192
Release Date:1 July 2010
Weight:140g
Dimensions:197mm x 130mm x 11mm
Series:Vintage Books
What They're Saying

Critics Review

Highly original. Infinitely charming. And ever so touching.

Highly original. Infinitely charming. And ever so touching. * Paul Auster *A perfectly sustained novel (a tribute to Stephen Snyder’s smooth translation); like a note prolonged…a pause enabling us to peer intently into the lives of its characters…has all the charm and restraint of any by Ishiguro and the whimsy of Murakami * Los Angeles Times *Beautiful…the extraordinary Yoko Ogawa casts her spell. Never before has the beauty of maths been so lovingly explored…a tender, gentle book…Ogawa is an original and establishes a world in a paragraph..This is a tale which will leave the reader gasping…Hopefully more of her exciting, thoughtful fiction is heading our way. * Irish Times *Its unnamed characters suggest archetype or myth; its rapturous concentration on the details of weather and cooking provide a satisfyingly textured foundation * Guardian *Alive with mysteries both mathematical and personal, this novel has the pared-down elegance of an equation * Oprah magazine *Ogawa’s crystalline prose heightens the simple elegance of this tale of lost souls looking for comfort and shelter - and finding it in the timeless symmetry of mathematical equations. * Metro *

About The Author

Yoko Ogawa

Yoko Ogawa (Author)

Yoko Ogawa has won every major Japanese literary award. Her fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, A Public Space, and Zoetrope. Her works include The Diving Pool, The Housekeeper and the Professor, Hotel Iris, and Revenge. Her dystopian novel, The Memory Police, was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize.

Stephen Snyder (Translator)

Stephen Snyder is a translator and professor of Japanese Studies at Middlebury College, Vermont, USA. He has translated works by Kenzaburo Oe, Ryu Murakami, and Miri Yu, among others. His translation of Natsuo Kirino’s Out was a finalist for the Edgar Award for best mystery novel in 2004. His translation of Yoko Ogawa’s Hotel Iris was shortlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize in 2011, and The Memory Police was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize in 2020.

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