Point Zero

Seicho Matsumoto

03/2024 · Bitter Lemon Press

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A triumph by Seicho Matsumoto (1909-1992), the master of Japanese mystery writing. A beautifully written novel that takes on the taboo of Japanese prostitution catering to GIs during the American post-war occupation.Tokyo 1958, Teiko marries Kenichi Uehara, ten years her senior, an advertising man recommended by an intermediary. After a four-day honeymoon, Kenichi vanishes. Keito travels to the coastal and snow-bound city of Kanazawa, where Kenishi was last seen, to investigate his disappearance. She discovers that he had been a police officer in Tokyo after the war, keeping watch over pan pan girls, Japanese prostitutes catering to GIs. Some of these women have created a new life in Kanazawa and may have taken extreme measures to hide their past.

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The Author and the Translator

Seichō Matsumoto (1909-1982) was Japan's most successful mystery writer. His first detective novel, Points and Lines, sold over a million copies in Japan. Vessel of Sand, published in English as Inspector Imanishi Investigates in1989, sold over four million copies and became a movie box-office hit. Bitter Lemon published his novel A Quiet Place in 2016. 

Louise Heal Kawai comes from Manchester. She has spent the past twenty years Japan and currently lives in Yokohama. Her translations include Daido Tamaki’s Milk, Tendo Shoko’s best-selling autobiography Yakuza Moon, and for Bitter Lemon, Matsumoto’s A Quiet Place.