Goodbye Madame Butterfly: Sex, Marriage and the Modern Japanese Woman by Sumie Kawakami, Yuko Enomoto (Translator)

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Synopsis

“Sumie Kawakami is an experienced and intelligent reporter who manages to get her subjects to bare their souls and share their anxieties in a book I found hard to put down. ” — Jeff Kingston, The Japan Times

“Kawakami presents a frank portrait of Japanese women today, via these compulsively readable, expertly crafted essays. Further kudos should go to Yuko Enomoto for her seamless translation.” — Suzanne Kamata, author of Losing Kei

“A tartly written, stereotype-blasting and beautifully made book.” — Roland Kelts, author of Japanamerica

“Refreshingly intense” — Colleen Mondor Bookslut

"Smart and lively and thoughtful and moving, like a good Studs Terkel without encyclopedic pretensions." — Daniel Handler, aka Lemony Snicket, author of the best-selling A Series of Unfortunate Events

“Full of rich details of contemporary Japan ... in the end readers should understand why Madame Butterfly no longer exists. Or perhaps never existed at all.” — Todd Shimoda author of The Fourth Treasure and 365 Views of Mt. Fuji

"An eye-opening, detailed look at the private, intimate lives of Japanese women ... This is an intelligent and authoritative work, covering everything from adultery to sex volunteers and the role of fortune tellers in Japanese romance. It is at once illuminating and entertaining, credible and so engrossing you will find it difficult to put down." — Robert Whiting, author of Tokyo Underworld, TheMeaning of Ichiro and You Gotta Have Wa

"These are the stories of Japanese women struggling to find themselves in the 21st century; by reading them westerners will likely see themselves reflected through a prism of shared hopes and disappointments." — Colleen Mondor, Bookslut

“[Kawakami’s essays are] brilliantly written, and a perfect example of how similar bad marriages are, regardless of their setting.”—Bookslut.com

Sumie Kawakami’s Goodbye Madame Butterfly is an intimate look at the sex lives of Japanese people from a female perspective. This groundbreaking work of nonfiction will shatter the myth of the pliant, coy Japanese woman and replace her with a complex, erotic, sexually charged and fiercely independent woman who struggles to find her place in a male-dominated society.

More info at: http://goodbyemadamebutterfly.com

Sumie Kawakami is a Japanese journalist and single mother who has written extensively on marriage and sex, including a 2004 book titled Tsuma no Koi (Wives in Love) with Astra, Inc., and three essays in Kuhaku & Other Accounts from Japan (Chin Music Press, 2005).

Biography

Sumie Kawakami is a journalist whose work often focuses on the roles of women in Japan. Her July 2004 book "Tsuma no Koi: Tatoe Furin to Yobarete mo" (Wives in Love: Even if it's Called Immoral) has sold around 5,000 copies so far. She is frequently interviewed by Japanese media on issues concerning women, marriage and infidelity.