The apparently unremarkable Natsumi lives in a modern Tokyo apartment with her husband and two sons: she does the laundry, goes to the supermarket, visits friends, and gossips with neighbors. Tracing her conversations and interactions with her family and friends as they blend seamlessly into her own infernally buzzing internal monologue, Mild Vertigo explores the dizzying reality of being unable to locate oneself in the endless stream of minutiae that forms a lonely life confined to a middle-class home, where both everything and nothing happens.

With shades of Clarice Lispector, Elena Ferrante, and Kobo Abe, this verbally acrobatic novel by the esteemed novelist, essayist, and critic Mieko Kanaiwhose work enjoys a cult status in Japanis a disconcerting and radically imaginative portrait of selfhood in late-stage capitalist society.

Format: Paperback
Published: USA, 2023
Publisher: New Directions
Languages: English
Pages: 179
ISBN 13: 9780811232289
ISBN 10: 081123228X