- Akutagawa Prize 2011 (second half) · Winner
Harlequin Butterfly
道化師の蝶 · Dōkeshi no chō
Toh EnJoe (円城塔, born 1972)
Translated by David Boyd
English editions
In EnglishHarlequin Butterfly
Pushkin Press · United Kingdom · 29 February 2024 · Paperback · 112 pages
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In a book composed in Latino sine flexione, a Latin stripped of endings, the rich businessman A. A. Abrams finds himself cast as the clown. He spends freely on staff to track down its elusive author, the polyglot Tomoyuki Tomoyuki, who keeps moving and leaves manuscripts behind in each local tongue. Words circle the globe, and on a plane, as a butterfly flits clean through a hat, someone swings a net made of language.
AI-generated summary
About the book
- Form
- Novella
- Length
- 173 pages in the original
- Genres
- Speculative (assigned by AI)
- First published
- 2011 by Kodansha
- Author's age
- 39 when first published
- ISBN
9784062175616 (original)
9781782279778 (Pushkin Press, United Kingdom)