Didier Decoin, who won the Prix Goncourt in 1977, spent 14 years researching and writing this novel, set over 1,000 years ago in Heian Japan. He effectively recreates a vanished world, conjuring pungent smells and forested landscapes, footnoting traditional clothing and legendary creatures.
The novel opens with Miyuki, the young widow of a recently drowned carp fisherman, undertaking to deliver fish from her village to the ponds of the imperial palace in Heian Kyō. Her perilous journey features thieves, a dead body, and a night as a courtesan; then an unexpected task awaits in the city.
Miyuki reimagines her own lost world – her dead husband – and sustains herself with erotic memories of him (it’s for these that the book was joint winner of last year’s Bad Sex award). There’s a striking power imbalance in many of these scenes, such as when Miyuki recalls how “having nothing else to offer him, she agreed to embraces that tore her apart and crushed her”. Readers might lose patience with them in what is otherwise an evocative, quietly gripping novel.
• The Office of Gardens and Ponds, translated by Euan Cameron, is published by MacLehose (RRP £8.99). To order a copy go to guardianbookshop.com. Free UK p&p over £15.
