Wow! eBook
Hell First Edition
Author(s): Yasutaka Tsutsui (Author), Evan Emswiler (Translator)
- Publisher: Alma Books Ltd
- Publication Date: 10 Sept. 2007
- Edition: First Edition
- Language: English
- Print length: 300 pages
- ISBN-10: 1846880378
- ISBN-13: 9781846880377
Book Description
Fifty-seven-year-old Takeshi has just been involved in a traffic accident. When he wakes up, he is in a strange bar, no longer crippled as he has been for most of his life, but able to walk without crutches in his everyday business suit. Looking around, he sees a number of familiar faces – Izumi, a colleague who had died in a plane crash five years before; his childhood friend Yuzo, who had become a yakuza and had been killed by a rival gang member; and Sasaki, who had frozen to death as a homeless vagrant. This is Hell – a place where three days last as long as ten years on earth, and people are able to see events in both the future and the past. Yuzo can now see the yakuza that killed him as he harasses a friend of his. The actress Mayumi and the writer Torigai are chased by the paparazzi into an elevator that drops to floor 666 beneath ground level. The vivid depiction of afterlife portrayed in “Hell” admits the traditional horrors, but subjects them to Tsutsui’s unique powers of enchantment: witty, amusing, praised for its poetic style and the wizard-like light touch of the author’s shifting focus, “Hell” is a masterpiece of surrealist literature.
Editorial Reviews
Review
The nice thing about Tsutsui is that history and modernity combine effortlessly, as do drab reality and fantasy –The Daily Telegraph
About the Author
Born in Osaka, Yasutaka Tsutsui is particularly well known for his science fiction. After graduating from Doshisha University, he founded NULL, a science fiction magazine. His short story O-tasuke (Help) won him the recognition and respect of Rampo Edogawa, ‘the father of Japanese mystery writing’. In 1970s Tsutsui began experimenting in a variety of styles, from slapstick and black humour to various kinds of metafiction. Winner of various awards including Izumi Kyoka Prize, Kawabata Prize and Yomiuri Literary Prize.
