Bestseller in Japan, this Otsuichi's YA novella defies genre categorization. Dark fantasy at its Japanese best. With bonus material including author's afterword. A raven who has learned to speak from watching movies befriends a young girl whose eyes were ruined in a freak accident. He brings her eyeballs he steals from other people, and when she puts them in her eye sockets, she sees memories from their original owners. Desperate to make the girl happy, the raven brings her more and more eyeballs. This is also the story of a young girl, Nami, who has lost her memories and cannot seem to live up to the expectations of those around her. The stories intertwine in a haunting, dreamy, horrific narrative evoking the raw and universal need for love.
Author
Otsuichi (乙一, Otsuichi?), also known as Eiichi Nakata and Asako Yamashiro, is the pen-name of Hirotaka Adachi (安達 寛高), born 1978. He is a Japanese writer, mostly of horror short stories. He made his debut with Summer, Fireworks, and My Corpse while still in high school. Major works include the novel Goth, which was made into a manga, and the short story collection Zoo, which was made into a movie. Tokyopop has released his short story collection Calling You, and will release Goth in November. His short story F-Sensei's Pocket appears in the English language edition of Faust.
