This is a fascinating Japanese noir thriller, exploring fate and free will as well as giving the reader insightful views on Japan's culture and personality. Nishimura is a supremely gifted pickpocket who has a conscience but is detached from society, lifting wallets from people he sees as begin able to afford it. Asked to help out in a seemingly straightforward crime leads him into a dangerous set-up. The short book (210 pages) is a refreshingly intense read.
Nishimura is a seasoned pickpocket, weaving through Tokyo's crowded streets, in search of potential targets. He has no family, no friends, no connections . . . But he does have a past, which finally catches up with him when his old partner-in-crime reappears and offers him a job he can't refuse. Suddenly, Nishimura finds himself caught in a web so tangled and intricate that even he might not be able to escape.
Taut, atmospheric and cool, The Thief will steal your breath away.
Fuminori Nakamura was born in 1977 and graduated from Fukushima University in 2000. In 2002, he won the prestigious Shincho Newcomer's Award for his first novel, A Gun, and in 2005 he won the Akutagawa prize for The Boy in the Earth.The Thief, winner of the 2009 Oe Prize, Japan's most important literary award, is his first novel to be published in English.
