'The sun is the fire that gives me life, eternal desire and prayer, endlessly enduring hope.'

For a short novel/novella (coming in at about 130 pages) this certainly packs a punch and was a deserved winner of the Oe Kenzaburo Prize in 2014. Two women meet at an English language class in Australia; Salimah is a single mother of two boys, a refugee from Nigeria, while Sayuri is the wife of an academic with a young baby girl. From these basic beginnings Iwaki weaves a touching story of loss, family and, above all, friendship. As the two women face their own heartbreaks and disasters their tentative friendship helps them cope and navigate their way through their lives.

There is a lyricism and poetry to the language, excellently translated from the Japanese (top marks to the translator Meredith McKinney). This becomes a sort of meta-fiction towards the end as, with a clever little twist, we realise what it is that we have just read. For me as a native English speaker it raises questions about language and how we communicate; both the two central characters struggle to express themselves in this foreign tongue, and the book explores ideas about belonging and identity with a subtlety and assurance that will make it resonate with me for some time. It is one of those books to come back to for a second reading, which I am sure will reveal even more from the story. ( )