Goodnight Tokyo

Goodnight Tokyo excels in capturing the romance of nocturnal life. Even though it is set over several nights, each story in the novel takes place between the hours of one and four in the morning. It’s easy to think of this period as a void time in which everyone sleeps, but Yoshida’s characters are those to whom these dead hours are daily life, and the author creates a late-night world that is so brimming with activity and character that it seems more than worth staying up for. This yearning for the night is emphasized by Haydn Trowell’s lyrical translation, such as is the case here when the setting of the sun feels more like a beginning than an end:

But morning eventually gives way to day, and day to night, the pale moonlight falling once more over Tokyo’s diners, its bars, its antiques shops, its film studios, and its telephone consultation rooms.