真ん中の子どもたち

Kotoko is nineteen, raised in Japan as the child of a Taiwanese mother and Japanese father, and goes to Shanghai to study Chinese, the language her mother speaks. Her roommate, Wu Jialing, has the reverse parentage and is there for the language of her father's side. In Jialing's class is Long Shunya, whose family moved from Taiwan to Japan two generations ago and who talks in a broad Kansai accent. Lessons in standard Mandarin keep reminding Kotoko that she is anything but standard herself, and it unsettles her. Over one bright Shanghai summer the three, whose histories and sense of self are knotted into the languages they speak, wrestle with their roots, grow close, and begin to claim a language of their own.

AI-generated summary

About the book

Form

Novel

Length

163 pages in the original

Genres

Coming of age, Migration (assigned by AI)

Set in

China

First published

2017 by Shueisha

Author's age

37 when first published

ISBN

9784087711226 (original)