Europa Editions

The first volume of a sweeping fantasy by one of Japan’s most beloved storytellers, and the bestselling author of the Moribito series. The vast Umal Empire has flourished for centuries thanks to the miraculous ohaleh rice, a sacred grain brought from a distant land by the first empress Kokun. Resistant to all parasites, the rice has sustained the empire, ensuring peace and prosperity for centuries - until now. When a mysterious infestation strikes, famine spreads and the empire begins to crumble. Fifteen-year-old Aisha, granddaughter of the deposed lord of West Kantal, flees to the imperial capital with her younger brother after a violent coup. There she meets the reigning Kokun, Olie - an enigmatic girl worshipped for her supposed gift of scent, yet secretly powerless. As Aisha uncovers her own latent ability to perceive the natural world through smell, she and Olie form an unlikely alliance. Together, Aisha and Olie must uncover a hidden history and the truth behind the ohaleh rice, all the while battling forces that threaten not just the empire’s survival, but the very balance of nature.

FEMINIST TALES FROM JAPAN BY THE ACCLAIMED AUTHOR OF WHERE THE WILD LADIES ARE. Piercing, inventive, and darkly humorous, the fifty-two stories in Aoko Matsuda’s The Woman Dies explore the persistent and pervasive sexism faced by women in modern-day Japan. The normalization of violence against women on screen and in the media is confronted in the story ‘The Woman Dies’, while others invest inanimate objects with their own perspectives, examine the aesthetics of technology, and use clever wordplay to riff off the absurdity of contemporary life. Masterfully translated by Polly Barton, the translator of Asako Yuzuki’s Butter, The Woman Dies is more than a simple thrill ride. Blending humour, surrealism, and sharp social critique, it’s a vast, multifaceted theme park of ideas by one of Japan’s most exciting writers.

The sensational French novel about love and beauty that has taken the world by storm Fifty-two weeks. That’s all the time Mona has left to learn about beauty before she loses her eyesight forever. Fifty-two works of art. Every Wednesday, Mona’s grandfather picks her up after school and takes her to see a great work of art. Fifty-two chapters. Together, on their visit to Paris’ museums, Mona and her grandfather will experience enchantment and sadness. Above all, they will grow ever closer and learn to lean on each other. From Botticelli to Basquiat, Mona will discover not only the power of art, but also the meaning of generosity, doubt, melancholy, and loss. A profound, beautifully crafted novel about the fullness of life and an enthralling guide to the world’s most renowned art, Mona’s Eyes is a moving story about the bond between a young girl and her grandfather.

Set in the early hours of the morning in and around Tokyo, this ingeniously constructed English language debut is an energetic fresco of nocturnal existence. Hailed as a mélange of Agatha Christie, Teju Cole, and Hieronymus Bosch, Goodnight Tokyo is a compelling reflection on human relationships in modern-day metropolises at the intersection of isolation and intimacy. Matsui is the driver of a taxi the colour of the night sky. Every night between the hours of 1 am and 4.30 am, when Tokyo's eccentrics and insomniacs emerge, he guides his taxi around the streets of Tokyo, collecting passengers and their stories. Yoshida's novel offers readers a unique and intimate take on Tokyo as seen through the eyes of a large cast of colourful characters whose lives are mysteriously but intricately interconnected and whose fates converge against the backdrop of the city's neon-lit streets and night-time alleys.

In Displaced, Russian journalist Valery Panyushkin chronicles the devastating impact of his country’s invasion of Ukraine. By uncovering the stories of ordinary Ukrainians thrust into the chaos of war, and transformed overnight from citizens into victims and refugees, Panyushkin sheds light on the brutal crimes committed by the Russian regime and offers a necessary act of truth-telling and atonement. Panyushkin delves into individual lives shattered by conflict, illuminating the human cost of war beyond the battlefront. Through interviews with people from all walks of life, the book paints a vivid picture of the challenges, choices, and hopes of those caught in the turmoil of war. Urgent and necessary, Displaced is not only a compelling account of loss and survival, but also a testament to the resilience of the human spirit, a call for empathy and solidarity, and a Russian writer’s tribute to the courage of the Ukrainian people.

Fully-illustrated, The Passenger collects the best new writing, photography, art and reportage from around the world. IN THIS VOLUME: Paolo Macry on Naples’ “monarch mayors”. Francesco Abazia on the influence of the US Army’s presence on Neapolitan popular music. Cristina Napolitano on the Neapolitan diaspora, and what it means to come back. Gianni Montieri on the city’s passion for football. Alessandra Coppola on the cult of the young victims of the Camorra, or the police, and much more… In recent years, Naples has been the subject of countless books, films and TV series, making it even more difficult to imagine a Neapolitan normality, if it exists at all. As Naples becomes the most filmed city in Italy, where to look for the ordinary, the average? Maybe we need to "go up" to Vomero, a neighborhood considered almost alien to the city, middle class, homogeneous, peaceful? A reality in sharp contrast with the over-the-top life of the historic centre, crossed as it is by a thousand stratifications - architectural, historical and social. And yet even there we find an alternative reading: the city as a model of coexistence between ancient and modern. While some areas have been waiting for decades for much promised redevelopment, others have benefited from cutting-edge projects with far-reaching positive impact, representing a Naples that attracts talent, exports models, and colonizes instead of being colonized.

Fully-illustrated, The Passenger collects the best new writing, photography, art and reportage from around the world. IN THIS VOLUME: Hell Joseon by Elisa Shua Dusapin • The View from the North by Lee Hyeonseo • Lessons in Democracy by Jiyoung Choi • plus: the Samsung Republic and the most militarized border in the world, the real reason why Korean women don’t have children, democracy and K-pop, baseball, esports, and shamanism, and much more… From kimchi to TV series, from Oscar-winning films to K-pop, from webtoons to cosmetics, in recent years Korea has captured the global imagination, one viral trend at a time. In this volume, The Passenger sets out in search of the world’s coolest nation. Eighty years ago, at the end of a devastating civil war, South Korea was one of the poorest countries in the world, under constant threat from the Communist regime north of the 38th parallel and completely dependent on the United States for its security and prosperity. Today, it is the world’s tenth-largest economy, a dynamic and innovative country with a per capita GDP similar to that of Western Europe, a lively and participatory democracy that stands up to its larger, more powerful neighbors. And above all, the country is the origin of the hallyu—the Korean wave—which has reached every corner of the world and taken the global entertainment, food, and culture industries by storm. This extremely rapid and astonishing transformation has inevitably brought ruptures and contradictions. If the global youth looks to Korea as previous generations looked to Hollywood and New York, young Koreans instead talk about Hell Joseon: a country that is rapidly aging, an economic system dominated by powerful chaebols (family-controlled conglomerates), a fiercely competitive educational system, a generational gap in outlook and behavior and, at the center of it all, the role of women— one of the keys that The Passenger has chosen to try to decipher a complex, fascinating country, central to the dynamics of today’s world, and that is often exoticized and idealized to the same extent.

An unforgettable story of unlikely friendship and the scars of a broken past. The first novel from the million-copy bestselling author of Fresh Water for Flowers. Justine is 21 years old and has lived with her grandparents and cousin Jules since the death of her parents. She works as a carer at a retirement home and spends her days listening to her residents' stories. After bonding with Helene, an almost 100-year-old resident, the two women slowly reveal their stories to one another. Whilst Justine helps Helene to relive her memories of love and war, Helene encourages Justine to confront the secrets of her own past, and the loss she has buried deep within. One day, trouble arrives in the form of a mysterious phone call that shakes the retirement home to its core and uncovers a shocking revelation. At once humorous and melancholic, Valerie Perrin's debut novel is a story of how the past can shape our present, and the scars of undeclared love.

AN EMOTIONAL AND UPLIFTING NOVEL FROM THE FRENCH MARIAN KEYES FOR FANS OF RUTH HOGAN, VERONICA HENRY AND SARAH MORGAN Emma and Agathe are sisters. They grew up together yet are very different. Agathe, the youngest, messy, and ardent, has always taken up all the space in the bath, in the bedroom, and in Emma's heart. After five years of unexplained silence, Emma arranges to meet Agathe in the family’s holiday home. After their beloved grandmother passed away, the place must be emptied, and the memories revisited. The two sisters have a week to tell each other everything and make up for the time they spent apart. Will they be able to fix the past in the beauty of the summer in the Basque Country, where their childhood is knocking at the door?

When 18-year-old Benjamin Glass goes to look at a dead whale that has washed up on the beach, he meets an unfamiliar dog who follows him home to his caravan. Benjamin isn’t equipped to take care of a dog – he has a chronic fear of germs, and is currently living alone while his grandmother is in hospital. But when a delivery driver recognises the dog as The Mighty Gary, the fastest greyhound in the country, and tells Benjamin about his unsavoury owners, Benjamin is forced to trust the stranger on his doorstep and devise a plan to keep Gary safe. As Benjamin becomes more attached to the dog, it becomes clear that his trust in the delivery driver may well have been misplaced. He will have to leave his comfort zone, take some unhygienic risks, cross paths with dangerous and powerful men and confront his very worst fears if he has any hope of protecting what he loves the most.

Fully-illustrated, The Passenger collects the best new writing, photography, art and reportage from around the world. IN THIS VOLUME: The Sea Between Lands by David Abulalfia; The Liquid Road by Leila Slimani; The Cold One, the Hot One, the Mad One, and the Angry One by Nick Hunt • plus: the sounds and smells of the Mediterranean; the ceaseless hunt for tuna; the invention of the Mediterranean diet; and much more… The word “Mediterranean” has always evoked something larger than geography. For millennia, it has designated a distinct cultural and historical space, one where different peoples have met, traded, and—not infrequently—clashed. Starting from its Latin etymology (“in the middle of the Earth”), the Mediterranean is intimately connected with ideas of connection, exchange, and multiplicity. Today, however, the Mediterranean appears to be in crisis. Neglected by the European Union—which often sees North Africa and the Middle East as a threat, or at best as a source of energy—the Mediterranean is at the center of one of the greatest migrations in history. While every year hundreds of millions of vacationers flock to its shores, as in a distorting mirror hundreds of thousands of people face a dramatic journey in the opposite direction—to escape wars, persecutions, and poverty. The liquid road, as Homer called it, is increasingly militarized, trafficked, and polluted—as well as overheated and overfished. This volume of The Passenger dives deep into the complex issues and contradictions facing the Mediterranean. As the book shows, despite its problems, the Mediterranean remains a source of wonder and fascination—a space not entirely colonized by modernity, where time flows differently, and where multiple cultures and languages are in closer contact and dialogue than elsewhere.

A housewife finds herself haunted by visions of a mushroom cloud. She abruptly leaves her husband and son to travel alone to the city of Nagasaki, where she soon begins an affair with a young Russian-Japanese man. Inspired by Marguerite Duras's screenplay for "Hiroshima, Mon Amour," this novel is an undeniable demonstration of Kashimada's distinctive voice, the polish and precision of her literary style, and her dedication to plumbing the depths of her characters' psychology. Thrilling and poised in equal measure, dealing with the travails of history, with gendered identity, and with the tension between private and public selves, Love at Six Thousand Degrees is a literary highwire act by one of the most unique voices in contemporary Japanese fiction.

WINNER OF THE TAIWAN LITERATURE AWARD Keith Chen, the desperately yearned for second son of a traditional Taiwanese family with five daughters, refuses to play the role his parochial parents would cast him in. Instead, he chooses to make a life for himself in cosmopolitan Berlin, where he finally finds acceptance as a young gay man. The novel is set about a decade later, on Ghost Festival, the Day of Deliverance. After Keith's release from a maximum security prison, he has nowhere to go but home. With his parents gone, his siblings married, mad, on the lam, or dead, there is nothing left for him there, so it seems. As he explores his uncanny home town, we learn what tore his family apart, and, more importantly, the truth behind the terrible crime Keith committed in Germany. Told in a myriad of voices-both living and dead-and moving through time with deceptive ease, Ghost Town is a mesmerizing story of family secrets, countryside superstitions, and the search for identity amid a clash of cultures.

The Passenger collects the best new writing, photography, and reportage from around the world. Its aim, to break down barriers and introduce the essence of the place. Packed with essays and investigative journalism; original photography and illustrations; charts, and unusual facts and observations, each volume offers a unique insight into a different culture, and how history has shaped the place into what it is today. Brimming with intricate research and enduring wonder, The Passenger is a love-letter to global travel. IN THIS VOLUME, Marco D'Eramo, Nicola Lagioia, Matteo Nucci, and Francesco Piccolo among other Italian writers tell of a city which, despite appearances, slips further down the ranking of the world's most liveable cities. To the problems faced by all large capitals, Rome has added a list of calamities of its own: widespread corruption, the resurgence of fascist movements, rampant crime. A seemingly hopeless situation perfectly symbolised by the fact that Rome currently leads the world in the number of self-combusting public buses. However, if we look closer, this narrative is contradicted by just as many signs that point in the opposite direction. The majority of Romans wouldn't consider "betraying" their hometown, and the many newcomers are often indistinguishable from the natives in the profound love that binds them to the city, leading to a lack of the mass emigration. Rome is a place of contradictions, yet to understand Rome and "fix" its problems, we should consider it a normal city, "not unlike Chicago or Manchester." Only, incomparably more beautiful.

The Passenger collects the best new writing, photography, and reportage from around the world. Its aim, to break down barriers and introduce the essence of the place. Packed with essays and investigative journalism; original photography and illustrations; charts, and unusual facts and observations, each volume offers a unique insight into a different culture, and how history has shaped the place into what it is today. Brimming with intricate research and enduring wonder, The Passenger is a love-letter to global travel. IN THIS VOLUME, Tash Aw, James McAuley, Samar Yazbek, among other French writers tell of the second largest city of Europe. The radiance of the "city of lights" can be blinding even for tourists: the clash with the real city, so different from the one depicted in films and books, results in some of them developing the so-called "Paris syndrome." That said, the cracks in the postcard image of the city seem to multiply: terrorist attacks, the demonstrations of the yellow vests, the riots in the suburbs, Notre-Dame in flames, record heatwaves. Meanwhile, soaring living costs are forcing many Parisians to leave the city. Yet these are not just a series of unfortunate events. They are phenomena-from increasing population density to climate change, from immigration to the repercussions of globalization and geopolitics- that all metropolises in the world must face. And in Paris, today, the mood is not one of defeat but of renewal: from ongoing environmental and urbanistic transformation to the children of immigrants who take to the streets for the right to feel French, and the women determined to break the sexism and stereotypes that dominate the fashion industry. Is there anyone who seriously thinks they can teach Parisians how to stage a revolution?

The Passenger collects the best new writing, photography, and reportage from around the world. Its aim, to break down barriers and introduce the essence of the place. Packed with essays and investigative journalism; original photography and illustrations; charts, and unusual facts and observations, each volume offers a unique insight into a different culture, and how history has shaped the place into what it is today. Brimming with intricate research and enduring wonder, The Passenger is a love-letter to global travel. IN THIS VOLUME, Peter Schneider, Cees Nooteboom, Vincenzo Latronico among other German writers tell of a youthful city that doesn't cling to its "poor but sexy" past. "Berlin is too big for Berlin" is the curious title of a book by the flaneur Hanns Zischler, who joked about the low population density of a city so spread-out and polycentric-one of the reasons why it still inspires feelings of freedom and space. But the phrase also carries a symbolic, broader meaning: how can a single city encompass and sustain such a weighty mythology as that of contemporary Berlin, "the capital of cool"? In order to find out, it is necessary to go back to the origins of today's Berlin, when time seemed to have stopped. The scars of a century of war were still visible everywhere: coal stoves, crumbling buildings, desolate minimarts, not a working buzzer or elevator. To visit the city then was a hallucinatory experience, a simultaneous journey into the past and into the future. The city's youth seemed to have appropriated-and turned into a positive-the famous phrase pronounced by Karl Scheffler at the beginning of the 20th century: "Berlin is a place doomed to always become, never be."