The Pachinko Parlour

It is summer in Tokyo. Claire finds herself dividing her time between tutoring ten-year-old Mieko in an apartment in an abandoned hotel, and lying on the floor at her grandparents' home: daydreaming, playing Tetris and listening to the sounds from the street above. The heat rises; the days slip by. When her grandparents first arrived in Tokyo, fleeing the civil war in Korea, they opened Shiny, a pachinko parlour. Shiny is still open, drawing people in with its bright, flashing lights and promises of good fortune. And as Mieko and Claire gradually bond, a tender relationship growing, Mieko's determination to visit the pachinko parlour builds and with it, Claire's own desire to visit Korea with her grandparents. The Pachinko Parlour is a nuanced and beguiling exploration of identity and otherness, unspoken histories, and the loneliness you can feel amongst family. Crisp and enigmatic, Dusapin's writing glows with intelligence.

Elisa Shua Dusapin was born in France in 1992 and raised in Paris, Seoul and Switzerland. Her first novel Winter in Sokcho, translated into twenty three languages, was awarded the National Book Award for Translated Literature, the Prix Robert Walser and the Prix Régine Deforges. The Pachinko Parlour was awarded the Swiss Literature Prize and has to date been sold into eleven languages.