Митико Аояма (Michiko Aoyama)The Japanese Bestseller
What you are looking for is in the library
Michiko Aoyama
Translated by alison watts
About the Author
Michiko Aoyama was born in 1970 in Aichi Prefecture,
Japan. After graduating from university, she worked for two years as a reporter for a Japanese newspaper based in
Sydney before moving back to Japan to work as a magazine editor for a publishing company in Tokyo. Her debut novel
Cocoa on Thursday won the inaugural Miyazaki Book Award.
A later work, The Cat’s Tale Under the Tree, won the Tenryu
Literature Prize. Her other works include Kamakura Uzumaki
Information Centre, God Is on Duty Now, Monday Matcha
Café, My Present, Usual Thursday, In the Moon Forest and
Red, Blue and Esquisse. What You Are Looking For is in the
Library was shortlisted for the Japan Booksellers’ Award and became a Japanese bestseller. It is being translated into more than twenty languages. She lives in Yokohama, Japan.
Alison Watts has translated The Boy and the Dog by Seishu
Hase and Sweet Bean Paste by Durian Sukegawa, in addition to novels by Naoki Matayoshi and Riku Onda.
Michiko Aoyama
WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING FOR IS IN THE LIBRARY
Translated from the Japanese by Alison Watts
Contents
1. Chapter I
2. Chapter II
3. Chapter III
4. Chapter IV
5. Chapter V
CHAPTER I
TOMOKA, 21, WOMENSWEAR SALES ASSISTANT
When Saya sends a text to tell me she has a new boyfriend, I instantly write back: What’s he like? But all she replies is: He’s a doctor. Nothing about looks or personality, or what kind of doctor he is – I mean, he could be any kind, couldn’t he? It’s true I know what she means by doctor. Jobs can be a clue to somebody’s character. A short-cut way of describing them. But only in a limited, stereotyped sort of way.
That starts me thinking: what do people think about me based on my job? What does it say about my personality or qualities?
I’ve known Saya since high school. She’s a friend from back home who’s kept in touch ever since I left to come to college in Tokyo. She sends me texts every now and then. Bit by bit, the story of how she met her new boyfriend at a party appears on the pale sky-blue screen of my smartphone. Then she writes: How r u doing?
With my finger poised above the screen, I tap b and brilliant pops up in the auto-predict, so I just select it and tap send. What I really meant to say, though, was bored.