Louise Heal Kawai is a translator who brings Japanese literature to English readers. She is best known for her work on the classic mystery Gokumon Island and the contemporary novella Ms Ice Sandwich. Her translations span several genres, from golden age crime to modern literary fiction.
Ms Ice Sandwich
Ms Ice Sandwich
Synopsis
An unnamed fourth-grader narrates a quiet, funny, and unexpectedly moving stretch of his own life: he has become fixated on a young woman who works behind the sandwich counter at his local supermarket, whose dramatic ice-blue eyeshadow has earned her the private nickname "Ms Ice Sandwich." He visits her counter again and again, working up the nerve to actually speak to her, while schoolyard gossip about his crush threatens to turn the whole thing into a joke.
At home, his closest confidante is his grandmother, who is dying and has lost the ability to speak — their one-sided conversations become a place where he can say the things he can't say anywhere else. A new friendship with a blunt, unpopular classmate named Tutti gives him, for the first time, someone his own age he can be honest with.
Mieko Kawakami's English-language debut is a small, quietly devastating novella about noticing other people — really noticing them — for the first time, and about how children absorb loss long before they have the words for it.
Vibe
Genres
Characters
The NarratorProtagonist
An unnamed fourth-grade boy quietly infatuated with a young woman who works a supermarket sandwich counter.
Ms. Ice SandwichSupporting
The supermarket sandwich-counter worker the narrator privately nicknames for her striking ice-blue eyeshadow.
The GrandmotherSupporting
The narrator's dying, mute grandmother, who becomes his silent confidante.
TuttiSupporting
A blunt, unpopular classmate who becomes the narrator's first honest friend.
Subjects
Places
Edition
Ms Ice SandwichKindle, 2018
160 pages
Random House Publishing ServicesLanguage: EnglishISBN: 978178227331822 editions available
