Before We Forget Kindness

Kawaguchi returns to the quiet territory that made his cafe stories travel so widely: the ordinary kindnesses people leave unsaid until the chance to say them has passed. Before We Forget Kindness is contemporary fiction built around characters weighing old choices against what those choices cost the people closest to them. The storytelling stays restrained and interior, moving through small encounters rather than large dramatic turns, and the emotional weight accumulates slowly. Readers who came to this author through his earlier books will recognise the gentle pacing and the steady attention to regret, reconciliation and the value of time already spent. What to expect: • Japanese contemporary fiction in English translation, sized for a single weekend of reading • A cast of characters examining decisions they cannot take back • Understated prose that favours feeling over plot machinery • Themes of forgiveness, memory and everyday tenderness Suited to book clubs, readers of quiet literary fiction and anyone who enjoyed the author's earlier titles. Published by Pan MacMillan and available at Boipoka.