se fija en ella y le pide oficialmente la mano a su padre. Aunque escribe en francés, Shimazaki pertenece a la misma estirpe de grandes escritores contemporáneos japoneses como Haruki Murakami, Hiromi Kawakami y Yoko Ogawa, con esa combinación única de sensualidad y melancolía y esa atención a los pequeños y grandes cambios de la naturaleza y del alma humana. ENGLISH DESCRIPTION How long does love last? Under what circumstances can you rekindle that spark again? What are the consequences of a lost love? By the winner of the Ringuet Award, a literary award presented each year by the Académie des lettres du Québec, the Canada-Japan Literary Award, and the Gouverneur-Général Award. Aoki Takashi is thirty years-old and works for a prestigious company in Tokyo that demands unlimited time and dedication from its employees. He hardly has any time for matters of the heart, but then Takashi falls fiercely and unexpectedly in love with Yuko, a receptionist who he meets while taking French classes. Together they begin a beautiful relationship, full of daily rituals, but that relationship is soon threatened when the heir of the powerful Sumida Bank lays eyes on her and asks her father for her hand in marriage. Although he writes in French, Shimazaki belongs to the same lineage of great contemporary Japanese writers such as Haruki Murakami, Hiromi Kawakami, and Yoko Ogawa, with a unique combination of sensuality and nostalgia and a remarkable attention to changes in nature and in the human soul.