The Premonition

This delicate, precisely drawn novella packs a lot into its slender spine . . . Exquisite.

This polished, concise, emotionally rewarding family drama, originally written in 1988, explores how ghosts of the past determine the path to the future.

Casts a delicate spell . . . In a creative landscape that is increasingly homogenised by an Anglo-American style, it’s refreshing to pick up literature that has not lost its thisness. The world that blossoms from Yoshimoto’s text is unequivocally Japanese, in the aesthetic vein known as mono no aware, which roughly translates as ‘the pathos of things’ or ‘a sensitivity to ephemera’. But beneath the poetics, Yoshimoto’s books confront serious themes . . . The Premonition taps into anxiety about memory, childhood and the peculiar feeling that there’s a hidden truth about ourselves we’ve forgotten, and if only we took pains to find it we might finally feel at home.

[Yoshimoto] made me believe again that it was possible to write honestly, rigorously, morally, about the material reality of characters; to write toward human warmth as a reaffirmation of the bonds that tie us together.

A nostalgia-inflected coming-of-age tale, The Premonition sees Yoshimoto cast a subtle shadow over cosy domesticity by unpacking a young woman’s haunting childhood memories and familial secrets.

Yayoi grows up with a perfect family – but is haunted by the idea there is something about her past she has forgotten. So she decides to move in with her strange aunt, and memories begin to be unearthed. . .