Inheritance from mother
Subtitle: a novel
By: Minae Mizumura ; translated from the Japanese by Juliet Winters Carpenter
Contributors: Carpenter, Juliet Winters, translator
Publisher: Other Press
Published: 2017
Language: eng
Number of pages: 446
ISBN-13: 9781590517826
Subjects: Self-realization; Women college teachers; Mothers and daughters; Middle-aged women; Marriage; Fiction
Work titles: Haha no isan
Description: "Mitsuki Katsura, a Japanese woman in her mid-fifties, is a French language instructor at a private university in Tokyo. Her husband, whom she met in Paris, where he ardently wooed her, is a professor at a different private university. He is having an affair with a much younger woman. In addition to her husband's infidelity, Mitsuki must deal with her ailing eighty-something mother, a demanding, self-absorbed woman who is nothing like the idealized image of the patient, self-sacrificing Japanese matriarch. Mitsuki finds herself guiltily dreaming of the day when her mother will finally pass on. Though doing everything she can to ensure her mother's happiness, she grows weary of the responsibility of being a doting daughter and worries she is sacrificing her chance to find fulfillment in her middle age. Inheritance from Mother not only offers insight into a complex and paradoxical culture, but is also a profound work about mothers and daughters, marriage, old age, and the resilient spirit of women. "--
Notes: Previously published in Japanese as Haha no isan : shinbun sh¿⁻setsu. T¿⁻ky¿⁻ : Ch¿±¿⁻ K¿⁻ron Shinsha, 2012.

Translation from the Japanese of: Haha no isan.

Winner of the Osaragi Jiro Award.