Villain
  • Published: 3 October 2011
  • ISBN: 9780099526650
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 304
  • RRP: $32.99

Villain

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A gripping thriller about the dark heart of Japan. Now a major motion picture

A young woman is brutally murdered on a remote mountain road. A young construction worker, Yuichi, is on the run - but is he guilty?

This is the dark heart of Japan; a world of seedy sex hotels and decaying seaside towns; a world of loneliness, violence and desperation.

As the police close in on Yuichi and his new lover, the stories of the victim, the murderer and their families are uncovered. But these men and women are never what they appear to be...
  • Published: 3 October 2011
  • ISBN: 9780099526650
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 304
  • RRP: $32.99
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About the author

Shuichi Yoshida

Shuichi Yoshida was born in Nagasaki, Japan, in 1968. He is the author of numerous books and has won many Japanese literary awards, including the Akutayawa Prize for Park Life, and the prestigious Osaragi Jiro Prize and the Mainichi Publishing Culture Award, both of which he received for Villain. Several of his stories have been adapted for Japanese television, and a film based on Villain is due to be released in 2010 in Japan as Akunin. Yoshida lives in Tokyo.

portrait photo of Shuichi Yoshida

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Praise for Villain

A novelist of truly international stature

The Times

A gripping psychological thriller which shows a very different Japan from the neon-lit Tokyo we are more used to

Financial Times

The interest for a British audience will lie in the chilly details it reveals about contemporary Japanese society...what comes across so forcefully is the rootlessness and alienation of the youth in Japan

Daily Mail

It isn't hard to see why it has caused a sensation among readers and critics in Japan. Villain is a superlative crime novel with intriguing twists

Sunday Times

A complex and powerful exploration of the lives of a victim, killer and their families and friends... Villain is a moving and disturbing novel about loneliness, lies and the gap between expectation and reality. Highly recommended

Guardian

Yoshida has been compared to Stieg Larsson for his pairing of lurid crime and social critique, but his tone is less sensationalist, more melancholic...Yoshida exposes cruelty and alienation at all levels of Japanese society

New Yorker