Who is Nishino? Ten women have loved him, each certain they knew him, each telling a different story.
He slips into their lives with feline ease, offering warmth, charm, and sentences that feel like riddles. Sometimes he stays for years, sometimes for an hour, but each encounter leaves a mark—sensual, humorous, bittersweet.
Through ten intimate voices, a portrait emerges, though never fully complete. The Nishino they remember is romantic, reckless, tender, inscrutable. Perhaps the truth lies not in who he is, but in what each woman needed him to be.
Winner of the 2020 PEN Translation Prize, Hiromi Kawakami’s novel is a wry, sensual exploration of love’s many shapes, from fleeting connections to deep bonds, and the mystery at the heart of every relationship.
