Banana Yoshimoto

Mary Daly

Relates the experiences of two free-spirited young women in contemporary Japan

Kitchen

kata

As I grow older, much older, I will experience many things, and I will hit rock bottom again and again. Again and again I will suffer; again and again I will get back on my feet. I will not be defeated. I won't let my spirit be destroyed.

I will have countless ones, in my heart or in reality. Or in my travels. Alone, with a crowd of people, with one other person—in all the many places I will live. I know that there will be so many more.

But if a person hasn’t ever experienced true despair, she grows old never knowing how to evaluate where she is in life; never understanding what joy really is. 

Meniah

maia

No matter how dreamlike a love I have found myself in, no matter how delightfully drunk I have been, in my heart I was always aware that mny family consisted of only one other person.

Someday, without fail, everyone will disappear, scattered into the blackness of time. I've always lived with that knowledge rooted in my being

Waves of clouds were being pushed around by the wind with amazing force. In this world there is no place for sadness. No place; not one.

I sat down across from him and said, "I wonder if it's going to rain." 

“Naah, its clearing up, don't you think? Funny, isn't it, we haven't seen each other in all this timne and we talk about the weather." His smiling face put me at ease.

margarida

I will have countless ones, in my heart or in reality. Or in my travels. Alone, with a crowd of people, with one other person in all the many places I will live. I know that there will be so many more.

kemi

“Was it everything you had hoped?” This time she turned to face me, smiling. Relief diffused through my heart. “It was,” I said, smiling back at her. The two of us stood there in the sunshine for some time, as morning came.

one of most important passages of writing for me.

Minjae

No matter how bright his smile, I would have to strain my eyes to see him. His facial expressions, the atmosphere around him, always had a kind of transparency. The whole time I was with him there was that feeling of ephemerality, uncertainty.

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