The best recent translated fiction review roundup

Hana learns that her old friend Kimiko has been charged with abduction, leading back to late-1990s Tokyo and Hana’s turbulent friendship with Kimiko. Together they open a bar called Lemon, where yellow attracts money, but the situation quickly shifts into a world of organized crime. Events arrive with relentless speed, including people coming and going, buildings burning down, and cancer diagnoses that feel almost random. The story blends absurdity and horror, including a scene where Hana’s unreliable mother seeks a large loan for lingerie said to reposition organs and spine. Another story follows a schoolgirl in an unnamed European country whose body keeps growing due to an urge to consume, tied to a dead twin sister absorbed in the womb.

"Kawakami's latest opens with a bang, as narrator Hana learns that her old friend Kimiko has been charged with abduction. This MacGuffin takes us to their friendship in late-1990s Tokyo, when teen Hana and the older woman open a bar called Lemon: Yellow attracts money. But it's a turbulent ride and soon Hana is in a world of organised crime. The world is crazy. I feel like I'm living in a manga. She's not the only one, and you need an appetite for Kawakami's style, which prefers to explore rather than explain"

"people come and go, buildings burn down, cancer is diagnosed, almost at random but the relentless rush means there's no time to get bored. At its best as in a scene where Hana's unreliable mother wants to borrow 2m yen for investment in lingerie that helps your spine and organs move back to where they're supposed to be this is a story both absurd and horrifying."

"Forgive me for starting this story with bodily, unpalatable origins. You may as well it's all like that. In an unnamed European country, a schoolgirl born with no urge but to consume is getting bigger and bigger. My gut, my ass, my thighs they were all set on reaching the farthest corners of the world. She blames her gluttony on the need to silence the voice of her dead twin sister, who was absorbed into my tissues in the womb."

"She hates school, where other kids mock her, as though her own self-disgust weren't enough. After a blackly comic scene where she gets stuck in her bedroom doorframe like an uncooperative cork, she falls in love with the lonely carpenter who arrives to widen the door but there are more twists to come. This powerful story is deeply physical, but driven by a compelling voice describing the torment of a girl who is the psychical mirror of our time immoderation made manifest."

Read at www.theguardian.com