{"product_id":"tomoko-yoshida-dunderhead","title":"Tomoko Yoshida: Dunderhead (pre-order)","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-italic\"\u003eISOLARII, 2026, softcover, 324 pages, 10.8 x 7 cm\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-italic\"\u003eDunderhead\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e is the book-length English-language debut of Tomoko Yoshida, age 92: a brutal, lucid triptych-of poverty, resentment, the body's last defences-written between 1967 and 1977.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA bored grocery store employee drowns a neighbour's kitten in sewage, nudging a pram downhill until it meets a telephone pole. A man visits his dying enemy-and only friend-in a final attempt at dominance. A poor, shame-ridden woman named 'Crab' observes the violence surrounding her home.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYoshida's work is rooted in the afterlife-and trauma-of empire. Her father, a military colonel, led her through six schools across mainland Japan and Manchuria, then to Sakhalin in 1945, where Soviet soldiers took him from their home, and he was never seen again. In the years that followed, still a teenager, she wrote to Yukio Mishima, asking to stage one of his plays. He agreed, and her career began. Years later, when she received the Akutagawa Prize, Mishima served on the jury.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe would go on to found the literary magazine \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-italic\"\u003eGomu\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e, alongside her husband, in 1963, and later \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-italic\"\u003eBaru\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e, a publication she started and edited into her late eighties. She still writes every day. A cult figure of the highest order, closely read by the generation of writers who came after her-Yoko Ogawa, Hiroko Oyamada, Hiromi Kawakami.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThough often describing it, Yoshida's writing hardly lingers on tragedy, attending instead to the landscapes that emerge in its wake. Beneath the starkness of her world, there is a deep empathy for the 'dunderheads' who carry it.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"ICA Bookstore","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":59921572790656,"sku":null,"price":15.95,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0012\/4390\/6109\/files\/51Z15_VBo7L._SY522_2b88eec7-298b-4c6c-b6d6-9e1ef5a71246.jpg?v=1789748834","url":"https:\/\/shop.ica.art\/products\/tomoko-yoshida-dunderhead","provider":"ICA Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}