From the Nobel Prize-winning author:
"One of the great short novels of the 20th century" (
The Wall Street Journal).


Internationally acclaimed as one of the world's most influential writers, Kenzabur? ?e brings to the fore the post-WWII rage and anxiety of a decorous society in this "deathly black comedy... dripping with nuclear terror" (
The Japan Times).



Bird is an antisocial twenty-seven-year-old intellectual hanging on to a failing marriage with whiskey. He dreams of going to Africa where the sky sprawls with possibilities. Then, as though walloped by a massive invisible fist, Bird's Utopian fantasies are shattered when his wife gives birth to what he calls their "monster baby." Now, Bird is left with one question: How can he and his wife spend the rest of their lives with this damaged thing clinging to their backs?



As shameful, disgraceful, and unthinkable a desire as it is, Bird has an answer. Not sealed. Not just yet. Not before Bird flees on a bender of indiscriminate (and frustratingly impotent) sex, hard liquor, self-delusion, and most terrifying of all -- self-discovery.







"Very close to a perfect contemporary novel." --
The New York Times






"An astonishing novel." --
Mother Jones

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• Literature & FictionLiterary FictionPsychological
• Literature & FictionGenre FictionPsychological

• Publication Date: April 1, 2018
• Text-to-Speech: Disabled
• Lending: Disabled
• Print Length: 229 Pages
• File Size: 182 KB