Fuminori Nakamura
Author of The Thief
About the Author
Fuminori Nakamura was born in 1977 and graduated from Fukushima University in 2000. His first novel, A Gun, won the 2002 Shinch? Literary Prize for New Writers. His other books include Shade, which won the Noma Literary Prize in 2004, The Boy in the Earth, which won the 2005 Akutagawa Prize, The show more Thief, which won the 2010 Oe Prize, and Last Winter We Parted. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Image credit: Author Fuminori Nakamura
Works by Fuminori Nakamura
Associated Works
スピン 第3号 — Contributor — 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1977
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- Japan
- Education
- Fukushima University (2000)
Members
Reviews
Enjoyable, well-written story of a pickpocket who becomes involved with a man far more sinister than himself who forces him to commit a series of crimes for some unknown purpose. In the meantime, the pickpocket has befriended a neglected, abused boy who aspires to become a thief himself. Told quickly and quite effectively, but not a classic. The injection of Christian images, from Christmas to references to scripture, gives it an untypical flavor for Japanese noir.
Very confusing ending on who killed whom and why but the s*x scenes were hot.
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Statistics
- Works
- 17
- Also by
- 1
- Members
- 1,374
- Popularity
- #18,724
- Rating
- 3.4
- Reviews
- 66
- ISBNs
- 106
- Languages
- 8
- Favorited
- 1
The story opens with an unnamed narrator who is presumably on the run for something. He's come to a cabin in the woods to assume another person's identity. But along with this person's documents is a manuscript he's written, describing his disturbed childhood, and ending with an accusation that the reader has committed a murder. Gruesome evidence found in the cabin only incriminates the narrator further.
This was really hard to follow at times, because the story flips backwards and forwards in time. It's also very twisty-turny, with reveals that are hard to comprehend, or hard to understand until a few chapters later. It was also difficult for me to follow who was who until the last quarter or so of the book. The story is also interjected with rambling diatribes on the psyche of a killer - with particular focus on real life serial killer Tsutomu Miyazaki. I thought it was interesting, but maybe a little unnecessary for this story.
Overall, it was creepy and I didn't predict the twists, but it didn't totally *wow* me.… (more)