Hut of Fallen Persimmons (The Americas) - Tapa dura

"A journey to Japan seen through the eyes of two Brazilians: Haruki and Celina. Through a counterpoint of narration and text, and with reference to haiku by seventeenth-century master Matsuo Basho, the pair's losses and struggles unfold"--Provided by publisher.

In a station of the metro in Rio de Janeiro, where both live, illustrator Haruki and artisan Celina meet by chance--and soon decide, however improbably, to travel together to Japan. Their shared destination: the famous Rakushisha, or Hut of Fallen Persimmons, where seventeenth-century haiku master Matsuo Bash? once stayed. Their trip to Kyoto provides a context for each to meditate on the past, their feelings for each other, and questions of cultural difference. Through a counterpoint of narration and text, the pair's losses and struggles gradually unfold.
Bash?'s haiku brilliantly mold the novel's structure. Bash?'s translator in Brazil, readers learn, is Haruki's great unrequited love, and Celina's sad eyes conceal a tragedy in her own life. In this exquisitely woven novel, meant to be cradled in both hands as the Japanese might hold a precious object, the characters' every gesture, reflection, and self-revelation are manifest.