The Changeling.

OE, Kenzaburo .

Item Number: 139627

New York: Grove Press, 2010.

First edition of this work by the Nobel Prize-winning author. Octavo, original boards. Boldly signed in Japanese and English in the year of publication on the title page. Fine in a fine dust jacket. Jacket design by Charles Rue Woods. Translated from the Japanese by Deborah Boliver Boehm.

Oe introduces Kogito Choko, a writer in his early sixties, as he rekindles a childhood friendship with his estranged brother-in-law, the renowned filmmaker Goro Hanawa. Goro sends Kogito a trunk of tapes he has recorded of reflections about their friendship, but as Kogito is listening one night, he hears something odd. "I'm going to head over to the Other Side now," Goro says, and then Kogito hears a loud thud. After a moment of silence, Goro's voice continues: "But don't worry, I'm not going to stop communicating with you." Moments later, Kogito's wife rushes in; Goro has jumped to his death. With that, Kogito begins a far-ranging search to understand what drove his brother-in-law to suicide. His quest takes him from the forests of southern Japan to the washed-out streets of Berlin, where Kogito confronts the ghosts from his own past and that of his lifelong, but departed, friend.