Used book – Little Boxes, Yôko Ogawa, Sophie Refle

The narrator of this book lives in a former kindergarten. Everything in it is small, sized for those who once frequented it. In these fossilized premises, this woman pays very particular attention to one of the rooms, a place of memory where strange small boxes are stored.

Sometimes this lady walks at night in the company of a certain Mr. Baryton, a charming man for whom she deciphers messages. Mr. Baryton can see clearly, yet it is the words of his beloved that seem to diminish on paper along with her.

Some evenings on the hill, on the outskirts of the town, strangers await the passing of a breath, a wisp of wind. The lady from the kindergarten knows that they are listening in the wild to music inaudible to anyone but themselves, a song from afar. An absent presence.

Do not read Yôko Ogawa’s books without listening to each sentence, without hearing her words and the echo they produce. If you give them real attention, their meaning will literally unfold before your eyes.

Yôko Ogawa’s work is known worldwide. Petites boîtes (Small Boxes) is her twenty-sixth book translated into French.

9782330161293