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Country of Origin

A Novel

By Don Lee

Paperback | 9780393327069

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Book Description

A dazzling debut novel by the prize-winning author of Yellow, set in the unique and exotic nightworld of Tokyo.

Lisa Countryman is a woman of complex origins. Half-Japanese, adopted by African American parents, she returns to Tokyo, ostensibly to research her thesis on Japan's "sadContinue

A dazzling debut novel by the prize-winning author of Yellow, set in the unique and exotic nightworld of Tokyo.

Lisa Countryman is a woman of complex origins. Half-Japanese, adopted by African American parents, she returns to Tokyo, ostensibly to research her thesis on Japan's "sad, brutal reign of conformity." When she vanishes, Tom Hurley, who is half-Korean and half-white, is assigned to her case at the American embassy, as is local cop Kenzo Ota, who is 100 percent Japanese but deemed an outsider.

In this "poignant story of prejudice, betrayal and the search for identity" (Newsweek International), the trials and tribulations of these three remarkable characters are "at turns trenchantly funny and heartbreakingly sad" (Publishers Weekly). "[An] elegant and haunting debut" (Entertainment Weekly), Country of Origin is a "swirl of action, a whirl of love and sex and race and politics, local and international" (Chicago Tribune)—a "quiet literary triumph" (Booklist).

Critics

  • The Best Reviews: Don Lee, Country of Origin

    "Interesting Japanese police procedural" In 1980 University of Berkley graduate student Lisa Countryman, a half-Japanese, half-black American, conducts her dissertation research in Tokyo on the brutal societal conformity of bar girls. Lisa also has a ... (read full critics)

    thebestreviews published on Thu, 16 Sep 2010

  • Country of Origin By Don Lee

    Japan may possess the world's greatest disparity between public decorum and private perversity. This darker side of Japanese life is explored in Country of Origin, the first novel by Ploughshares editor Don Lee. The plot centers around the disappeara ... (read full critics)

    bookpage published on Thu, 16 Sep 2010

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Book Details

  • English Books
  • Paperback 315 Pages
  • Edition: Reprint
  • ISBN-10: 039332706X
  • ISBN-13: 9780393327069
  • Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
  • Pub date: Apr 01, 2005
  • Dimensions: 1355 mm x 903 mm x 194 mm Just how big is that?
  • Also available as: Hardcover
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9780393327069 Paperback $13.95 $11.18 bn.com
$13.95 $10.68 The Book Depository
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