Infinite Books

“The Premonition” by Banana Yoshimoto was written in 1988 but has only been translated into English by Asa Yoneda. It’s a short novel, a coming-of-age story of nineteen-year-old Yayoi, who has a premonition that something significant happened in her childhood. She feels her loving parents may not be her biological parents and is strangely drawn to travel to see her aunt, thirty-year-old Yukino.

Yukino lives alone and works as a music teacher. For the levelheaded, despite her premonitions, Yayoi, her aunt, is a picture of an independent woman. Yukino eats when hungry, sleeps whenever she feels like, and seems to cast away social norms. However, this freedom comes from secrets that she hides and borders on hoarding (she has a pile of discarded things in her backyard) and alcohol addiction. Yukino is trying to escape any responsibility; her taboo relationship is very controversial.

I enjoyed this novel very much. It has the almost magical feel of something simmering under the surface. Yayoi’s trip to move in with Yukino is her journey to self-discovery. It’s also a book about the power of family and home. We all need roots, and a sense of family and home strengthens people to move forward. For Yayoi, discovering the truth is life-changing, and it gives her freedom – not the reluctant, self-imposed one that her aunt has, but the actual feeling of who she is and what she wants to do.

THE PREMONITION by Banana, Penguin Random House, 2023