The Briefcase

By Hiromi Kawakami and Allison Markin Powell

Tsukiko, thirty–eight, works in an office and lives alone. One night, she happens to meet one of her former high school teachers, "Sensei" in a local bar. Tsukiko had only ever called him "Sensei" ("Teacher"). He is thirty years her senior, retired, and presumably a widower. Their relationship–traced by Kawakami's gentle hints at the changing seasons–develops from a perfunctory acknowledgment of each other as they eat and drink alone at the bar, to an enjoyable sense of companionship, and finally into a deeply sentimental love affair.

As Tsukiko and Sensei grow to know and love one another, time's passing comes across through the seasons and the food and beverages they consume together. From warm sake to chilled beer, from the buds on the trees to the blooming of the cherry blossoms, the reader is enveloped by a keen sense of pathos and both characters' keen loneliness.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Mar 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781619020436

Hiromi Kawakami

Hiromi Kawakami was born in Tokyo in 1958. Since the publication of God in 1994, she has written numerous novels and collections of short stories, including Strange Weather in Tokyo and The Nakano Thrift Shop. Her most recent novel, Running Water, was published in Japan in 2014 and won the Yomiuri Prize for Literature. Hiromi Kawakami has previously been awarded the Akutagawa Prize and the Tanizaki Prize, and was shortlisted for the 2013 Man Asian Literary Prize and the 2014 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. Her work has been published in more than twenty languages.

Reviews for The Briefcase

[squeakychu · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a lovely story taking place in Japan. Tsukiki is an unmarried woman, pretty lonesome at the time we meet her, who encounters a much older previous teacher of hers at a bar. She and he, whom she only addresses as Sensei, the respectful Japanese word for teacher or older person, become friends through chance encounters. When Tsukiki does not run into him, she longs for his companionship. He is very careful to maintain a respectful distance from her. We follow their relationship through all kinds of weather (the weather passages are so beautiful), in various places, through all kinds of culinary experiences, and in various states of inebriation. The lingering questions are...does he really love her...and will he ever sleep with her?

[mandathestrange · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A sad but exquisitely beautiful read. Dream like, poetic and one that will certainly stay with me. It also made me want to eat delicious Japanese food and drink sake.

[andrewreads_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was a surprise. I picked it up at the library because I thought the cover was pretty and I'm a sucker for Japanese authors. Using sparse prose, Kawakami explores several different themes including the differences between contentment and happiness, the effects of prolonged nostalgia/loneliness, and the impact of large age differences on interpersonal relationships. This book was simple but not simplistic... if that makes sense? I enjoyed it.

[missizicks · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This was a poignant, surreal and oddly touching book, about unrequited love changing to mutual love. The main character is adrift, moving through life aimlessly. A chance encounter with an old school teacher in a bar changes everything. At first, nobody knows where things are going, but then Tsukiko takes charge of a sort. The emotional remove between the two protagonists is at once frustrating and endearing. It made me think of Botchan at times, with the formality and hidden meanings and the way nobody seems to get to the point, of Murakami's appreciation of loneliness at others.

[sylviac_43 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A lovely, quiet book. I read it in about three hours. About a socially awkward 37 year old woman who encounters and becomes friends with one of her former highschool teachers. The whole book is very much focussed on their relationship. And food and drink. A lot of drink. The descriptions of food are mouthwatering. The only two things I didn't care much for were a rather long dream sequence, and weirdness with quotation marks. I borrowed it through interlibrary loan, and now I'm going to have to find a print copy to keep.

[quondame · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Two people who don't form the usual sort of couple and aren't handy with their feelings or relationship dynamics circle into their own version of being a pair. An engaging and expressive translation.