Yasunari Kawabata's lusciously peculiar novel Dandelions was unfinished when he took his life in 1972. It's a story of love and loss and mania, told in sparse, arresting prose (Paris Review)Kawabata's novels are among the most affecting and original works of our time (New York Times Book Review)There are few other writers who could invoke such a lasting memory of a single image with so few words. (San Francisco Chronicle)A literary habitat like no other?quietly devastating fiction. Behind a lyrical and understated surface, chaotic passions pulse (The Independent)

The exquisite last novel from Nobel Prize-winning author Yasunari Kawabata

Ineko has lost the ability to see things. At first it was a ping-pong ball, then it was her fiancé. The doctors call it 'body blindness', and she is placed in a psychiatric clinic to recover. As Ineko's mother and fiancé walk along the riverbank after visiting time, they wonder: is her condition a form of madness - or an expression of love? Exploring the distance between us, and what we say without words, Kawabata's transcendent final novel is the last word from a master of Japanese literature.

'Lusciously peculiar' Paris Review