A Tale for the Time Being
Ruth Ozeki
Nao lives in Tokyo. She is sixteen, and has decided to write a diary before she kills herself. She has plenty of material—school bullies, depressed parents—but she particularly wants to chronicle the life of her great-grandmother, Jiko, a Buddhist nun. Eventually, Nao thinks, her diary will find its reader.
Ruth lives with her husband on the Pacific coast of Canada. A few months after the 2010 tsunami, she finds a Hello Kitty lunchbox washed up on the shore. It contains a diary…
‘This is the simple story of a girl, her great-grandmother and the novelist who becomes enthralled with their tale. But this simple story draws from the deep currents of our times, from quantum physics, Japanese ghost tales, suicide trends, first-person accounts of kamikaze fighters during World War II, thirteenth-century Buddhist texts and recent pop culture. It is a meditation on impermanence, and the intimate relationship between past and present, fact and fiction, and time and text.’ Ruth Ozeki
‘Confessions of a Zen Novelist’ by Ruth Ozeki, Lion’s Roar
INTERVIEWS
Text Blog, Number 3 Chiller
The Wheeler Centre
4ZZZ Book Club
Canongate
Guardian
REVIEWS
Independent
Washington Post
Readings
Ruth launches A Tale for the Time Being at NYU Bookstore
andA Tale for the Time Being
‘A beautifully interwoven novel about magic and loss and the incomprehensible threads that connect our lives. I loved it.’
‘Deep and gorgeous and wise. A completely satisfying, continually surprising, wholly remarkable achievement.’
‘Ozeki is one of my favorite novelists and here she is at her absolute best—bewitching, intelligent, hilarious, and heartbreaking, often on the same page.’
‘Ruth Ozeki beautifully renders not only the devastation of the collision between man and the natural world, but also its often miraculous results. She is a deeply intelligent and humane writer who offers her insight with a grace that beguiles. I truly love this novel.’
‘Ingenious and touching…I read it with great pleasure.’
‘Delightful…fresh and immediate.’
‘A huge, compassionate and cleverly wrought novel.’
‘A masterpiece, pure and simple.’
‘Masterfully woven…a spellbinding tale.’
‘A Tale for The Time Being is many things: literary thriller, cross-cultural meditation and postmodern game. Ozeki’s subtlety and craft make these into a convincing whole.’
‘One of those exquisitely rare books in which you’re still wondering what else it holds until the very last page.’
‘A Tale for the Time Being achieves an impressive balancing act: it’s a book that is profound but never earnest.’
‘An engaging, bitter-sweet work.’
‘Clever on many levels but also immensely readable.’
