Author Spotlight Event!

AUTHOR TOMOKA SHIBASAKI IN SEATTLE!

Date & Time:
Thursday, November 14, 7:30PM

Venue:
Mehdi Reading Room, Seattle Town Hall
(1119 8th Ave, Seattle, WA)
 
Admission:FREE
Registration Required
Click HERE to Register

Join an intimate conversation with Japanese author Tomoka Shibasaki as she discusses her literary works, including the award-winning Spring Garden (Haru no niwa), during her visit to Seattle, Washington. She will be reading from her forthcoming collection (in early 2025) "A Hundred Years and a Day."

Spring Garden was translated by Polly Barton and has been published by several presses, most recently by Pushkin Press in 2024: "Taro is divorced, unhappy in his job, and living in a half-empty building that is about to be torn down. One summer morning, he sees a fellow resident climbing over the wall to the next-door house. She says she is called Nishi, and invites herself inside. It emerges that Nishi’s fascination with this pale blue house began in her student days twenty years before, and came from a book of photos called “Spring Garden” from decades earlier. As the summer draws to a close, Nishi, Taro and the new family that has moved into the old house come together and drift apart, leaving the reader with a sense of their whole life in just a few vivid snapshots." 

Copies of Spring Garden may be purchased during the event from on-site vendor Elliott Bay Books. Additionally, back issues of the journal Monkey that include translations of Shibasaki's short stories are also available. Publications bought on site or brought from home can be signed by the author. 

This film screening is part of a series of events in Seattle highlighting Shibasaki's contributions to Japanese literature. A movie screening of Asako I & II, based on Shibasaki's Netemo Sametemo, will be held on November 13 in Thomson Hall 101 at the University of Washington, for which details can be found on the event page. 

This event is offered through a partnership with the University of Washington Japan Studies Program, Elliott Bay Books, and Seattle Town Hall. 

  About the Author:
Tomoka Shibasaki was born in 1973 in Osaka and began writing fiction while still in high school. After graduating from university, she took an office job but continued writing, and was shortlisted for the Bungei Prize in 1998. Her first book, A Day on the Planet, was turned into a hit movie, and Spring Garden won the prestigious Akutagawa Prize in 2014.