Sweet Bean Paste

'I'm in story heaven with this book.' Cecelia Ahern, author of P.S. I Love You A charming tale of friendship, love and loneliness in contemporary Japan If you enjoyed We'll Prescribe You a Cat or Days at the Morisaki Bookshop, you'll love Sweet Bean Paste Sentaro has failed. He has a criminal record, drinks too much, and his dream of becoming a writer is just a distant memory. With only the blossoming of the cherry trees to mark the passing of time, he spends his days in a tiny confectionery shop selling dorayaki, a type of pancake filled with sweet bean paste. But everything is about to change. Into his life comes Tokue, an elderly woman with disfigured hands and a troubled past. Tokue makes the best sweet bean paste Sentaro has ever tasted. She begins to teach him her craft, but as their friendship flourishes, social pressures become impossible to escape and Tokue's dark secret is revealed, with devastating consequences. Sweet Bean Paste is a moving novel about the burden of the past and the redemptive power of friendship. Translated into English for the first time, Durian Sukegawa's beautiful prose is capturing hearts all over the world.

Durian Sukegawa studied oriental philosophy at Waseda University, before going on to work as a reporter in Berlin and Cambodia in the early 1990s. He has written a number of books and essays, TV programmes and films. He lives in Tokyo. Alison Watts is a freelance translator, translating literature from Japanese into English. She lives in Ibaraki, Japan.