Some focusing on love and marriage, others on protecting others etc. If anyone is to blame, it’s the guy who brutalised and murdered Emily in the first place, right?Īt times, however, it can be difficult to relate to some of theĬharacters, but this is because they are all women who’ve grown into different lives, Building on the simple idea of blame and weighing it heavy on the young girls’ lives. She’s excellent at balancing that fine line of justice vs persecution. To clarify, this is where Minato’s writing comes into its own. Is the Mother right in pursuing her revenge by cursing their lives?

Other children wrong for letting their friend go off with a stranger unguarded? Penance contains a healthy helping of moral haziness. The genre also features many other prominent Japanese authors such as Keigo Higashino (One of my all-time favourites), Soji Shimada, Natsuo Kirino and Seichō Matsumoto. Iyamisu is a sub-genre of crime fiction that focuses on the dark and grotesque side of human nature. In Japan, Minato, a former economics teacher, has been given the moniker, ‘the Queen of Iyamisu’, meaning eww mystery. Penance author, Kanae Minato – Ayako Shimobayashi via LA Times The Japanese Booksellers Award (Confessions). Novel, Confessions, Kanae Minato has become a worldwide bestseller and has won Having burst onto the Japanese literary stage with her first This creates a jigsaw of pieces that are slowly form when you read through all of the perspectives. Maybe we should have been taught to scream and run away if a stranger talked to us? Kanae Minato, Chapter 1 – French Doll

Everyone saw something different, yet the girls may not know what the others saw. She vows to make the girls pay for their crime.Īs a result, having each chapter told from a different perspective, the book is narrated as a ‘vantage point’ piece. The final chapter of Penance is told from the perspective ofĮmily’s Mother, Asako, who has cursed the girls for not looking out for her daughter Significantly, they each grow up with different lives, but with one thing in common – They always remember the day Emily was murdered just yards from where they were playing. Yuko all of Emily’s friends who were with her on the day she was killed. How do you deal with the rape and murder of one of your childhoodįriends? This is the question answered in each chapter by Sae, Maki, Akiko and If this has your attention, then you’ll love Kanae Minato’s psychological thriller, Penance. A Japanese tale of human depravity and the dark consequences of childhood trauma.

Penance minato kanae