Published in 2006 (first published 2003)
128 pages
After dropping out of school and living on the streets for some years, Hitomi Kanehara started to write. Her novels have won several prizes in Japan. The first novel Snakes and Earings won the Akutagawa Prize and the Subaru Prize and it sold a million copies.
What is this book about?
The Prize-Winning Cult Classic and International Bestseller with Over 1 Million Copies Sold
Describing a world as amoral and fascinating as the landscapes of Less Than Zero and Trainspotting, this novel about a young woman living in the violent world of Japan’s underground youth culture is both shocking and strangely beautiful.
Enchanted by the snakelike forked tongue of a stranger called Ama, nineteen-year-old Lui takes a walk on another side of life. Following Ama home the night she meets him, Lui straightaway moves in with him and begins making plans to have her own tongue pierced. Determined to push her boundaries further, she asks Ama’s strange friend Shiba to design an exquisite dragon tattoo for her back. But when Lui and Shiba begin an affair, Ama’s jealousy is stirred and the situation becomes explosive.
