| Enter a
world of nihilism and self-destruction. Enter a world of
rape, incest, and trauma. Enter a world of violence, drugs,
and prostitution. Enter an innocent world.
Ami believes in nothing, hopes for nothing, and turns tricks
because it’s something to do. Her journey from the
pit of despair to the precarious edge of something else
captures the part of being seventeen that never makes it
into words.
A razor-sharp novella whose sheer intensity elevates
misanthropy to the level of art, Innocent World
is the author's first work to appear in English.
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photo (c)
Makoto Watanabe
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Ami
Sakurai made her name in Japan as a controversial
journalist and columnist, exploring the Tokyo underworld
of enjo kosai (compensation dating). Innocent
World came out to an equally bemused and disgusted
public, but has garnered for Sakurai a large following of
young women who feel like finally, there is a voice for
them. Sakurai is a writer for the Heidi Fleiss, Paris Hilton,
Tracy Quan, Annabelle Chong generation of women –
challenging our contemporary notions of female sexuality.
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“In
the latest scenes of modern Japanese society, you meet fragile,
immoral, but pure-hearted teenagers like this girl. She’s
a little bird, wandering in an empty nest.”
–Ryu Murakami, author of Coin Locker Babies
“Ami Sakurai’s writing
well reflects the harsh and hopeless reality of today’s
Japanese teenage girls. Sex and violence are the ways through
which she makes painful contact with the world. She successfully
combines the classic tragedy of incest with the futuristic science
fiction of reproductive technology, overturning the image of woman
as victim. Despite all the negative syndromes of a decayed
society, her answer is still positive
– I will survive.”
–Chizuko Ueno, Japan’s leading feminist and author
of The Theater Under the Skirt
To
see Innocent World Launch Tour photos, click here.
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