The Little House
2010
First Published
4.09
Average Rating
301
Number of Pages
The Little House is set in the early years of the Showa era (1926-89), when Japan’s situation is becoming increasingly tense but has not yet fully immersed in a wartime footing. On the outskirts of Tokyo, near a station on a private train line, stands a modest European style house with a red, triangular shaped roof. There a woman named Taki has worked as a maidservant in the house and lived with its owners, the Hirai family. Now, near the end of her life, Taki is writing down in a notebook her nostalgic memories of the time spent living in the house. Her journal captures the refined middle-class life of the time from her gentle perspective. At the end of the novel, however, a startling final chapter is added. The chapter brings to light, after Taki’s death, a fact not described in her notebook. This suddenly transforms the world that had been viewed through the lens of a nostalgic memoir, so that a dramatic, flesh-and-blood story takes shape. Nakajima manages to combine skillful dialogue with a dazzling ending. The result is a polished, masterful work fully deserving of the Naoki Prize.
Avg Rating
4.09
Number of Ratings
626
5 STARS
35%
4 STARS
44%
3 STARS
19%
2 STARS
2%
1 STARS
1%
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Author
Kyoko Nakajima
Author · 4 books
Nakajima (中島 京子) is an award-winning essayist and novelist from Japan. She studied at the Tokyo Woman's Christian University. Her many prizes include: the Naoki Prize, and the Izumi Kyōka Prize for Literature. And her story Chiisai Ouchi (The Little House), was adapted for cinema in 2014.
