Toddler Hunting and Other Stories by Taeko Kono translated from the Japanese by Lucy North. American paperback edition published by New Directions in 1996 (reprint).

Toddler-Hunting and Other Stories introduces a startlingly original voice. Winner of Japan’s top literary prizes for fiction (among them the Akutagawa, the Tanizaki, the Noma, and the Yomiuri), Taeko Kono writes with a strange beauty, pinpricked with sadomasochistic and disquieting scenes.

In the title story, the protagonist loathes young girls, but compulsively buys expensive clothes for little boys so that she can watch them dress and undress. The impersonal gaze Taeko Kono turns on this behavior transfixes the reader with a fatal question: What are we hunting for? And why?

Multiplying perspectives and refracting light from the strangely facing mirrors of fantasy and reality, pain and pleasure, these ten stories present Kono at her very best.

Very good general condition. Pages bright, clean and tightly bound. Very little creasing or wear to the covers or spine.

Thanks for looking. If you decide to buy, please complete checkout for payment instructions.