Praise for Asleep:

“Whether or not you believe in ghosts, Banana Yoshimoto's Asleep . . . will haunt you with its beautiful, pared-down prose.”

—Seattle Weekly

“Ethereal, spare [and] startlingly tender . . . It is to Yoshimoto's credit, in this artful translation by Michael Emmerich, that she is able to articulate those physical and emotional states that are more often than not aligned with silence.”

—The New York Times Book Review

“Readers everywhere adore her magically real fiction about modern young women. Written in a powerfully sparse, direct prose, she wonderfully conveys compelling dramatic stories and richly nuanced emotional states. . . . Beautifully written and deliciously plotted, believable magic seamlessly enters into Yoshimoto's fictions.”

—Times Record News

“Brief but powerful . . . Story passes gracefully into allegory.”

—Baltimore Sun

“Seductive . . . dreamy evocations of interior lives of contemporary Japanese . . . [Asleep] shows us something real and human about our times.”

—St. Petersburg Times

“Intoxicating . . . muted and mesmerizing . . . Yoshimoto's simple language and eerie sensibilities combine to present physical and emotional worlds far richer than in traditional narratives. Melancholy is rarely as clean and beautiful as it is in Yoshimoto's light hand.”

—Time Out New York

“Yoshimoto is . . . a poet, a spinner of haikulike sentences and thoughts. . . . Her characters don't forget their pasts; they hold on to their poignant memories. Still Yoshimoto leads them through these emotionally treacherous waters and leaves them dry on the path of life.”

—Raleigh News & Observer