Nick Bradley

Flo is sick of Tokyo. She is stuck in a rut, her translation work has dried up, and she's in a relationship that's run its course. That's until she stumbles upon a mysterious book left by a drunken passenger on the Tokyo Subway. She starts to read... SOUND OF WATER Kyo has failed his university entrance exams, split up with his girlfriend and is sent by his busy mother to a cram school in Onomichi, a small coastal town where he will stay with his grandmother, Ayako. Ayako is a fierce and strict old lady, who runs a coffee shop in town, is missing fingers, and won't talk about the past, or particularly what Kyo really wants to know: who his father was, and why he died by suicide when Kyo was only two. Following a year in Kyo and Ayako's lives, through the changing seasons in rural Japan, Sound of Water is an intergenerational story of family, relationships, creativity and how we overcome and live with failure in life. ...quickly, Flo realises that she needs to venture outside the pages of the book to track down its illusive author. And, as her two protagonists reveal themselves to have more in common with her life than first meets the eye, the lines between text and translator converge. Her journey is just beginning.

The new novel from the author of The Cat and The City

Four Seasons in Japan

About not talking about the heavy topic that lingers between them.

Nina May

Kyo desperately wanted things to go back to normal. But it felt like they were drifting apart.

'It's not about getting to the end - about completion. That's what I needed to learn. It's about the journey, the process itself. The cycle of work and art is like the seasons, flowing from one into another, round and round, over and over.'

He sighed, half in pleasure, half in resignation. The road ahead was going to be a long one, but he was certain he knew the way. All he had to do was just work on one pen line at a time, panel by panel. Just like his grandmother making her way down the mountain, he would set himself mini tasks each day, little goals done bit by bit that would add up to an entirety. And he would keep going and never give up. Sitting there alone on the mountain, all he had was the present. The past and the future didn't matter. The work was all he had - and therein lay the ioy of being.

But what he wouldn't apologize for is for how he felt in his heart.

What was so wrong about following one's dreams?

What was this life but his own, to do with as he saw fit?

Flo steeled herself. Struggling to translate her thoughts into words. To sum up everything that had been going on with her in this past year - in a sentence. She could list to herself all the things that had happened: [...] But how did she translate these very untranslatable feelings that coursed through her body and mind? How could she put this pain into words that other people could understand and relate to? Was it even possible?

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