Back to The Globe
Featured Thriller
The Summer House A Novel
This prize-winning debut novel offers a compelling, insightful portrait of modern Japan through a group of architects competing to design a major new building in Tokyo.
Your reading world on The Globe
Discover your next book. Keep the ones that matter.
Join The Globe for a free reader profile and discover books, writers and stories in one place.
About the book
About The Summer House A Novel
This prize-winning debut novel offers a compelling, insightful portrait of modern Japan through a group of architects competing to design a major new building in Tokyo. Tōru Sakanishi is a recent university graduate who joins the prestigious Murai Office, a small architecture firm founded by Shunsuke Murai, former student of Frank Lloyd Wright. A sensitive and observant narrator, Sakanishi is captivated by the artistic quality and careful consideration the Murai Office shows to each of its designs. As the sweltering summer months approach, the Murai Office migrates from Tokyo to Kita-Asama, a mountain village and artists’ colony whose heyday has passed. There, this small team of architects, including two women who Sakanishi is clumsily attracted to, set out to design the National Library of Modern Literature, competing against a rival firm that snaps up one government project after the next. Beautifully translated by National Book Award–winner Margaret Mitsutani, The Summer House is a character-driven story with prose that highlights the natural beauty of Japan, the ingenuity of architecture, and the clashing of modernity and tradition.
Reader conversation
Discuss this book
Are you the author or publisher?
Claim this page to verify the book information, add an author profile, update purchase links or request removal.