People From My Neighbourhood is composed of dozens of miniature stories—some barely a page long—that accumulate into the portrait of an unnamed community where everyday life continually slips sideways.

Children disappear into folklore, neighbours transform without explanation, rumours acquire the force of history, and the familiar streets begin to feel governed by dream logic rather than social realism. It's a beautiful little mosaic novel, where each fragment subtly reshapes the meaning of the last.

It showcases the qualities that have made Kawakami one of Japan's most distinctive contemporary writers: an effortless movement between fable, comedy and melancholy, and a refusal to separate the magical from the mundane. Ted Goossen's translation preserves the deceptive simplicity of her prose, allowing the strange to emerge without fanfare. It is an ideal book for readers of Yōko Ogawa, Yuri Herrera or Leonora Carrington, and for anyone interested in fiction that trusts implication more than explanation.

First UK edition, Granta Books, 2020. Near fine condition. Binding is firm, pages are clean and unmarked, with only very light shelf wear to the boards and a faint crease to the dust jacket.