The Premonition

The deeply moving new novel from the beloved, internationally bestselling author of Kitchen.

'Yoshimoto's novels are like jewel boxes.' - Vanity Fair

The new novel from the bestselling author of the beloved classic, Kitchen.

I had a melancholy premonition of reaching the end of the road and getting lost inside a distant tide. It was the beginning of summer, and I was nineteen years old.

Yayoi lives with her perfect, loving family - something 'like you'd see in a Spielberg movie'. But while her parents tell happy stories of her childhood, she is increasingly haunted by the sense that she's forgotten something important about her past. Deciding to take a break, she goes to stay with her mysterious but beloved aunt Yukino, whose strange behaviour includes waking Yayoi at two in the morning to be her drinking companion, watching Friday the 13th repeatedly and throwing away all the things she wants to forget. Living a life without order, Yukino seems to be protecting herself, but beneath this facade Yayoi starts to recover lost memories, and everything she knows about her past threatens to change forever.

About the Author

The Premonition was first published in 1988 in Japan, the year Banana Yoshimoto made her debut. That year she published four novels and all became bestsellers in Japan including (and most famously) the international bestseller Kitchen. She has published ten books in English translation, including Goodbye Tsugumi, Asleep, Moshi Moshi, and, most recently, Dead-End Memories. Her work has been translated and published in more than thirty countries. In Italy, she won the Scanno Literary Prize in 1993, the Fendissime Literary Prize in 1996, the Maschera d'Argento Prize in 1999, and the Capri Award in 2011. She lives in Tokyo.