Skip to content

Tales from the Cafe

Tales from the Cafe

A Novel
Magical RealismFantasy
Pages
256
Published
2021
Language
English

Synopsis

In a quiet basement cafe in Tokyo, a particular seat lets customers travel back in time. The rules remain unchanged from the first book: you cannot leave the seat, you cannot meet anyone who hasn't visited the cafe, nothing you do will alter the present, and you must return before your coffee gets cold.

Tales from the Cafe follows a new set of regulars and staff at Funiculi Funicula as they each choose to sit in that seat. Their reasons vary — an unresolved argument, a chance to see someone once more, a wish to say something left unsaid — but each visit leaves them changed rather than the past.

The second installment of Toshikazu Kawaguchi's bestselling series keeps the same gentle, dialogue-driven structure as the first book: four self-contained stories bound by the cafe's staff and its unusual rules, quiet in tone and centered on regret, memory, and small acts of understanding.

Prose complexity
1/10

Vibe

HeartwarmingMelancholicEmotionalReflective
Second ChanceMultiple POVs

Genres

Magical Realism Fantasy Time Travel Literary Fiction Short Stories

About the author

川
川口俊和

Toshikazu Kawaguchi (川口俊和) is a Japanese novelist, playwright and theatrical director, born in Osaka on 3 April 1971. He began working in theatre at 22, going on to produce, write and direct for the group Sonic Snail before founding his own company, Kawaguchi Produce. His play Before the Coffee Gets Cold won the Grand Prize at the 10th Suginami Theatre Festival in 2013; at an editor's urging he adapted it into a novel, published in Japan in 2015. The book became an international bestseller a...

Characters

All characters in Tales from the Cafe

Frequently asked questions

  • Is Tales from the Cafe part of a series?

    This book is the first in a series, and while each story within it is self-contained, the overarching concept and cafe setting continue in subsequent volumes.

  • Is there a film adaptation of Tales from the Cafe?

    A Japanese film adaptation of the book was released, bringing the cafe's time-traveling premise to the screen.

  • Does Tales from the Cafe have a consistent narrative or is it episodic?

    The book is structured as a collection of interconnected short stories, each focusing on different patrons who visit the cafe, but all bound by the central time-traveling mechanism and recurring characters.

Read all 1 reviews