My Name Is Sei Shonagon

My Name Is Sei Shonagon

Summary

Who is Sei Shonagon? The tenth-century author of The Pillow Book? A woman of mixed-race parentage, surviving life in modern Japan? Or a voice from behind a screen, reaching across centuries, linking them both?

Just off a fashionable street in the upbeat heart of contemporary Tokyo, lies a fragment of another age - an old incense shop. Above it, in a room furnished with nothing but a simple paper screen, guests come to speak with the woman known as 'Sei Shonagon', hoping to find answers to the mysteries of their own bizarre lives.

'Sei Shonagon' seeks out beauty where she can find it - whether in her memories, or in traditional Japanese culture. As she grows older, the need to understand what she sees around her becomes a personal odyssey that affects the lives of everyone she encounters.

Reviews

  • [An] exquisitely written observation of contemporary Japan... Jan Blensdorf is from Australia, but her sensitive perceptions of a society in crisis make this modern pillow book well worth its plucking from the publisher's slush pile
    Guardian

About the author

Jan Blensdorf

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