Other Press

Minae Mizumura’s second novel to be translated in English, Inheritance from Mother, comes out May 2, and today we’re pleased to share the gorgeous cover with you. We spoke to Kathleen DiGrado, the talent behind the cover, who had this to say:

“The design process was intuitive for me, so it’s difficult to describe. I have had trouble several times in the past when the AIGA, GRAPHIS, or another of the design organizations asked me to do the same when winning an award; once I just wrote a haiku.

To be quite honest, I was sad when I designed this cover. My mother is Japanese, and she was recently diagnosed with dementia/early Alzheimer’s, so there are many parallels between my present situation and Mitsuki’s.

I wanted to hint at the design for Minae Mizumura’s previous work, A True Novel, so I was delighted to once again use the traditional Japanese crest frames from a wonderful book I have. I wanted it to look elegant but somewhat somber. It’s quite easy for cherry blossoms to come off as a cliché, but they really are an important part of Japanese culture, and certainly for the older generation. I thought if we could somehow simulate the blossoms and frames as if they were printed on rice paper, in an imperfect way, this would convey the inner complexities faced by the dutiful Japanese daughter. The gold foil stamp adds another layer of the glimmer of hope fading. Love, beauty, contempt, and longing…I hope the cover conveys at least some of those themes.”

ELLE by Philippe Djian May 23, 2017

You saw the film starring Isabelle Huppert, now read the book on which it was based

Elle is a psychological thriller that recounts thirty days in the life of its heroine Michèle—powerfully portrayed by Isabelle Huppert in Paul Verhoeven’s award-winning film—where memory, sex, and death collide at every page.

A few weeks before Christmas, Michèle picks herself up from her living room floor. She has been raped. She has almost no recollection of her attacker but she senses his presence—he is never far away—and this uncanny feeling triggers a whirlwind of events and memories. She begins to fear she is losing her grip on a life already complicated by a demanding job, an ex-husband with a new girlfriend, a jealous lover, and a son trapped in a relationship with his girlfriend pregnant by another man.

Hardened by the consequences of her father’s violent past, Michèle—in her fifties, fiercely independent and unsentimental—refuses to be reduced to a victim. When her rapist begins taunting her with messages, she takes measures to protect herself until she discovers his identity…

Since the Arab Spring, Egypt has gone from democratic elections to the return of military rule. With a median age under 24 years, the country has left its youth feeling betrayed about the past and disillusioned about the present and future. World Policy Journal spoke with Rachel Aspden, author of Generation Revolution: On the Front Line Between Tradition and Change in the Middle East. Aspden discusses following a diverse group of young Egyptians as they grapple with their lives in a time of revolution and repression, as well as her experiences as a Western woman living in Egypt.

WORLD POLICY JOURNAL: In your book, you write about a diverse group of youth—before, during, and after the revolution in Egypt—and it seems no matter their background, the youth you spoke to were disillusioned with the status quo in the country. What do the think the major reason, or reasons, that galvanized this heterogeneous group of young people to act?

RACHEL ASPDEN: One of the things I talk about in the book is the generational shift that took place before the revolution. These young people's parents—whatever their circumstances really—had managed to reach an accommodation with the state, so the status quo kind of worked for them. There was this implicit deal with the state, whereby they would not get involved in politics and in return the state would make sure there was enough work, they could maintain a decent standard of living, and life could go on more or less as normal, as long they didn't cross those red lines or meddle in political matters. What started to happen in the 2000s was that deal started to break down in a very obvious way for young people. The population was growing and the state was no longer able to keep up, so unemployment became a massive issue. There were a lot of university graduates and there just weren't enough jobs to go around. Corruption was rampant and then there were day-to-day issues, like the failing infrastructure, which would mean that if you tried to go to a hospital you were going to have a horrible experience, if you wanted to get anywhere you were going to be sitting in traffic for hours and hours at a time, and you were going to be living in a very polluted environment.

These things started to mount up and at the same time people started to become more politically literate. I would trace that back to the protests over the second intifada in Palestine. That's really when this generation started to get politicized, and the universities were really the breeding ground for that dissent. So people stated to protest. Those protests carried on over the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and were brutally repressed by the government, and as the 2000s continued, people began to be much more aware of the impact of the tools of repression that the state was using. Police brutality was a really big issue and it started to spread, so that while some people could rationalize it before by saying this is only going to affect people who are political dissidents and religious extremists, it started to come closer and closer to these previously comfortable middle classes.