Harlequin Butterfly - Toh EnJoe

Harlequin Butterfly by Toh Enjoe, translated by David Boyd / ISBN 9781782279792 / 105-page paperback published in 2024 by Pushkin Press, from their new Japanese Novellas series

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A witty, dizzying literary caper about books, travel, and translation — perfect for fans of David Mitchell and the work of Hideaki Anno

This delightfully surreal novella follows the global pursuit of a mysterious writer who somehow writes in dozens of languages.

An affluent entrepreneur named A.A. Abrams sinks seemingly infinite resources into the global pursuit of a writer about whom very little is known. Abrams’ target, known as “Tomoyuki Tomoyuki,” moves from one place to another, producing work in the local language before moving on to another part of the world.

But how does Tomoyuki Tomoyuki move from one language to the next with such ease? Agents employed by the Abrams Institute attempt to make sense of the writer’s erratic movements and baffling writing habits, but come to find that within each puzzle is yet another puzzle, waiting to be unraveled. One puzzle leads to another in this delightful literary caper.

Toh EnJoe is a Japanese author of literary, scientific and speculative fiction. Born in Hokkaido, he studied physics and mathematics and worked as a researcher and at a software firm before becoming a full-time writer. He has received several awards for his fiction, including the Noma Prize for New Writers, the Nihon SF Taisho Award, and the prestigious Akutagawa Prize for Harlequin Butterfly.