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Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Eclipse

Eclipse

Paperback

General FictionHistorical Fiction

ISBN10: 023121491X
ISBN13: 9780231214919
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: Nov 12 2024
Pages: 152
Weight: 0.44
Height: 1.10 Width: 5.40 Depth: 8.40
Language: English

Winner, 2025-2026 Lindsley and Masao Miyoshi Translation Prize, Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture at Columbia University

In the late fifteenth century, a young Dominican friar sets out on a journey from Paris to Florence in search of manuscripts of pre-Christian philosophy. Along the way, he encounters an ascetic alchemist in a small village. As the young man falls under the spell of the alchemist's quest for enlightenment, a series of disasters--culminating in a total solar eclipse--strikes the village, with profound consequences.

Keiichiro Hirano's Eclipse was a meteoric literary sensation when it first appeared in 1998. Its author, still an undergraduate, was hailed as a prodigy; the book received Japan's most prestigious literary award, the Akutagawa Prize, and became a bestseller. Set on the eve of the Renaissance in Europe, Eclipse depicts a society that is on the surface vastly different from modern-day Japan. Yet its account of a challenge to dualistic binaries and ossified worldviews holds striking contemporary resonance and philosophical depth. Taking the form of a memoir, Eclipse brings together an evocative portrayal of its historical setting, including the lore of medieval alchemy, with a rich literary lexicon, lush imagery, and psychological intricacy. This vivid translation offers Anglophone readers a vital work by one of Japan's most distinctive voices.

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