All the Lovers in the Night
Europa Editions · first published 2011 · 224 pages
A freelance proofreader in her thirties, who lives almost entirely alone, tries to change her life after catching sight of her own reflection.
Quiet, exact sentences catch the small panics of loneliness, and the talks about light are tender and strange.
For a night spent looking at city lights.
About this book
Fuyuko Irie works at home correcting other people's sentences and speaks to almost no one except Hijiri, a confident editor her own age. Wanting to be different, she starts going out, and begins drinking to get through it. She meets Mitsutsuka, an older man who talks with her about light, and their meetings in a café become the center of her weeks. What stays is a portrait of shyness, and of how hard it is to be seen.