Territory of Light

'Wonderfully poetic ... extraordinary freshness ... a Virginia Woolf quality' Margaret Drabble

Territory of Light is the radiant story of a young woman, living alone in Tokyo with her two-year-old daughter. Its twelve chapters follow the first year of the narrator's separation from her husband. The novel is full of light, sometimes comforting and sometimes dangerous: sunlight streaming through windows, dappled light in the park, distant fireworks, dazzling floodwater, de-saturated streetlamps and mysterious explosions. The delicate prose is beautifully patterned: the cumulative effect is disarmingly powerful and bright after-images remain in your mind for a long time.

Review: Tsushima evades any label, her fiction transcends gender to focus on the existential loneliness that is at the heart of humanity. -- Kris Kosaka * Japan Times *

Wonderfully poetic ... extraordinary freshness ... a Virginia Woolf quality -- Margaret Drabble * BBC Radio 3 *

Spiky, atmospheric and intimate, filled with moments of strangeness that linger in the mind * The Spectator *

In this short, powerful novel lurk the joy and guilt of single parents everywhere * Guardian *

This exquisite and poignant novel . . . will resonate with single mothers always and everywhere -- Shami Chakrabarti

An extraordinary book . . . cool analytic intelligence propelled by sudden eruptions of passion -- Lisa Appignanesi

An astonishing and exquisite masterpiece about love, motherhood, female independence, and the restoration of a damaged family. Yuko Tsushima is an unforgettable name alongside great masters like Virginia Woolf, Alice Munro and Elizabeth Strout -- J. M. Lee, author of The Investigation