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The Office of Gardens and Ponds

On sale

2nd May 2019

Price: £16.99

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Selected: Hardcover / ISBN-13: 9780857057600

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A mesmerising fable with a difference, set in Japan over 1000 years ago

For readers of Alessandro Baricco’s Silk, Patrick Süskind’s Perfume and Takashi Hiraide’s The Guest Cat.

The village of Shimae is thrown into turmoil when master carp-catcher Katsuro suddenly drowns in the murky waters of the Kusagawa river. Who now will carry the precious cargo of carp to the Imperial Palace and preserve the crucial patronage that everyone in the village depends upon?

Step forward Miyuki, Katsuro’s grief-struck widow and the only remaining person in the village who knows anything about carp. She alone can undertake the long, perilous journey to the Imperial Palace, balancing the heavy baskets of fish on a pole across her shoulders, and ensure her village’s future.

So Miyuki sets off. Along her way she will encounter a host of remarkable characters, from prostitutes and innkeepers, to warlords and priests with evil in mind. She will endure ambushes and disaster, for the villagers are not the only people fixated on the fate of the eight magnificent carp.

But when she reaches the Office of Gardens and Ponds, Miyuki discovers that the trials of her journey are far from over. For in the Imperial City, nothing is quite as it seems, and beneath a veneer of refinement and ritual, there is an impenetrable barrier of politics and snobbery that Miyuki must overcome if she is to return to Shimae.

Reviews

Marie Rogatien, Le Figaro Magazine
A delicate spread of impressions, combining adventure and the supernatural
Olivia de Lamberterie, Télématin
A-ma-zing! A novel that sweeps you away. Big-hearted, empathetic - absolutely brilliant
Jean-Claude Perrier, Livres Hebdo
A total success, the result of no fewer than twelve years' work
Pierre Vavasseur, Le Parisien
A string of enchantments, transforming mud into gold
Alexandre Fillon, JDD
An unusual storyteller who has extensively researched the period he skilfully brings to life, Didier Decoin dazzles with his sense of atmosphere ... The Office of Gardens and Ponds is constantly surprising and captivating. It is a world full of women, ghosts, carp, juvenile emperors and rice packers, but what emerges is a sensual and enthralling mystery
Bruno Corty, Figaro littéraire
You must read Decoin
Frédéric Potet, Le Monde
Exquisite
Nathalie Crom, Télérama
A great love story
Marie-Françoise Leclère, Le Point
Fantastical
Marianne Payot, L'Express
Enchanting
Thomas Tissaud, L'Obs
Marvellous
Thierry Gandillot, Les Echos
Fresh, funny, erotic
Nick Rennison, Sunday Times
A fable of great charm and originality
Antonia Senior, Times
Fantastical and oddly beguiling