"The Briefcase" by Hiromi Kawakami

Big surprise for me this little novel, picked up randomly in a parisian bookshop and which waited way too long on my shelves. It's a little pearl of tenderness and understated emotion. And it is in this contained emotion that converge both the content and the form of a story as simple as a sunny day.

A 40 year old woman meets per chance her old litertature teacher in a bar, where they are going to sgare a few drinks and a few meals. And it is through thes einfiormal meetings that a surprising friendship will blossom between these two people, a relationship never fully acknowledged, yet quite fantasized upon by the discreet heroin.

Each chapter is a little non-adventure (in the forest, at the market, on an island, in Dysneyland, etc...) whose " haiku" side is reinforced by the minimalism of form and events. Little is said, even less is done, but everything is luminous. the writing itself, beautifully translated, is pregnant with this emotion that will course through you all through the novel.
The novel si asking delicate and interesting questions about those meetings that pepper our lives and the reasons why they take or fail to take an amorous form. Kawakami is able to poise in the near void of these intimate moments between people who never declare themselves, a real tenseness that make reading these pages compulsive.

As far as the Japanese context is concerned, any person mildly interested in this country will be delighted with the numerous culinary descriptions, with the chapeter dedicated to cherry trees, or with the beautiful description of the houses. A true pleasure, i say...

A very nice romance, superbly proposed in an impeccable style, and simply a piece of work that touches you and makes you happy.... Superlative and highly recommended!!