A Perfect Day to Be Alone - by Nanae Aoyama (Paperback)

About the Book

"The English-language debut of a prize-winning Japanese author, this touching, subtly funny novel evokes the daily struggles and hopes of two women from different generations. When her mother emigrates to China for work, 20-year-old Chizu moves in with 71-year-old Ginko, an eccentric distant relative, taking a room in her ramshackle Tokyo home, with its two resident cats and the persistent rattle of passing trains. Living their lives in imperfect symmetry, they establish an uneasy alliance, stress tested by Chizu's flashes of youthful spite. As the four seasons pass, Chizu navigates a series of tedious part-time jobs and unsatisfying relationships, before eventually finding her feet and salvaging a fierce independence from her solitude. A Perfect Day to Be Alone is a moving, microscopic examination of loneliness and heartbreak. With flashes of deadpan humor and a keen eye for poignant detail, Aoyama chronicles the painful process of breaking free from the moorings of youth"--

Book Synopsis

The English-language debut of a prize-winning Japanese author, this touching, subtly funny novel evokes the daily struggles and hopes of two women from different generations.

When her mother emigrates to China for work, 20-year-old Chizu moves in with 71-year-old Ginko, an eccentric distant relative, taking a room in her ramshackle Tokyo home, with its two resident cats and the persistent rattle of passing trains.

Living their lives in imperfect symmetry, they establish an uneasy alliance, stress tested by Chizu's flashes of youthful spite. As the four seasons pass, Chizu navigates a series of tedious part-time jobs and unsatisfying relationships, before eventually finding her feet and salvaging a fierce independence from her solitude.

A Perfect Day to Be Alone is a moving, microscopic examination of loneliness and heartbreak. With flashes of deadpan humor and a keen eye for poignant detail, Aoyama chronicles the painful process of breaking free from the moorings of youth.

Review Quotes

"A young woman spends a year adrift in Aoyama's elegant English-language debut...Aoyama adeptly conveys Chizu's loneliness and how her unvoiced emotions drive her attempts to pull others into her misery. The result is a notable tale of arrested development." --Publishers Weekly

"A slim coming-of-age novel of understated beauty...Kirkwood translates Aoyama's writing with subdued loveliness." --Shelf Awareness

"A Perfect Day to Be Alone feels more true to life than most such first-steps-into-adulthood novels...a satisfying little melancholy tale." --Complete Review

"Notably translated by Kirkwood, prolific, prize-winning Aoyama's anglophone debut is a raw examination of contemporary young womanhood that underscores burdensome expectations, disappointing intimacy, and elusive connections." --Booklist

"Droll...A voyeuristic record of a girl's thorny settling in to someone else's space, A Perfect Day to Be Alone is a sharp novella about a purposefully delayed coming-of-age." --Foreword Reviews

"Funny and deeply moving...a fitting introduction to the writer, whose tight, understated prose renders the juncture between adolescence and adulthood with humorous authenticity and tender pain." ―Japan Times

"A moving, poignant, and funny story about loneliness, coming-of-age, and the importance of connection and friendship. Filled with cats, trains, and miso soup, this novella is also a love letter to Tokyo, capturing the essence of youth in all its bittersweet glory." ―nb. Magazine

About the Author

Nanae Aoyama, born in 1983, is an acclaimed Japanese fiction writer. Her novel A Perfect Day to Be Alone received one of Japan's most prestigious literary awards, the Akutagawa Prize. She has also won the Bungei Prize and the Kawabata Yasunari Literary Prize. Her work has been translated into Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, German, French, and Italian.

Jesse Kirkwood is a freelance translator working primarily from Japanese and French into English. In 2020 he was awarded the Harvill Secker Young Translators' Prize for his translation of "Nocturne" by Yūshō Takiguchi. His new translation of Seichō Matsumoto's Tokyo Express was published as a Penguin Modern Classic in 2022.