Ashes of Spring cover art

Ashes of Spring

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About this listen

Award-winning Japanese author and poet Mieko Kawakami brings Ashes of Spring, a collection of short stories set in everyday life in Japan just before the pandemic lockdown. Kawakami’s stories straddle the line between delicate and beautiful human connection and the brutality of human nature. This poignant collection vividly captures the world we created shortly before it was put on pause, the characters at the center, painfully real. As we emerge five years later, Kawakami offers a stark reminder of our own fragility.

©2023 Mieko Kawakami (P)2025 Audible, Inc. Contemporary Fiction Genre Fiction

Editor reviews

「ONLY FROM audible」とは、Audibleのみが提供・販売するデジタル音声作品です（オリジナル作品や、独自ナレーション作品等）。
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The narrator was convincing and had a pleasant voice. Overall it was interesting but at times slow and repetitive.

Intriguing but slow

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I really liked this collection of short stories; they were low-key and deceptively simple on the surface, but imbued with the sense of looming danger, unease and dysphoria that was so characteristic of the beginning of the pandemic. For all its apparent simplicity, I actually thought the writing was very clever- halfway through a story I’d find the tone and perspective had “taken a 180”, almost without my noticing it was happening. Also thought the narrator was perfectly chosen for this collection of stories - clear, moderated and controlled, but never lacking in expression or emotion.

Subtly creepy

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confusing and flat uninteresting monotone didn't even finish it totally boring dull and not for me

confusing and flat

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